“Ah, lovely skeptic!” She looked at him strangely, but he continued with growing enthusiasm: “I mean to sit at such a table as this, with such a chef, with such wines—to know one crowded hour like this is to live! Not a thing is missing; all this swagger furniture, the rich atmosphere of smartness about the whole place; best of all, the company. It's a great thing to have the real people around you, the right sort, you know, socially; people you'd ask to your own table at home. There are only seven, but every one distingue, every one—”
She leaned both elbows on the table with her hands palm to palm, and, resting her cheek against the back of her left hand, looked at him steadily.
“And you—are you distinguished, too?”
“Oh, I wouldn't be much known over here,” he said modestly.
“Do you write poetry?”
“Oh, not professionally, though it is published. I suppose”—he sipped his champagne with his head a little to one side as though judging its quality—“I suppose I 've been more or less a dilettante. I've knocked about the world a good bit.”
“Helene says you're one of these leisure American billionaires like Mr. Cooley there,” she said in her tired voice.
“Oh, none of us are really quite billionaires.” He laughed deprecatingly.
“No, I suppose not—not really. Go on and tell me some more about life and this distinguished company.”
“Hey, folks!” Mr. Pedlow's roar broke in upon this dialogue. “You two are gittin' mighty thick over there. We're drinking a toast, and you'll have to break away long enough to join in.”