"Ah! Bert!" he said. "Taking a cooler; you're wise in your generation. They ought to keep a weighing machine outside in the lobbies, so that a man could see how much he'd fined down after each dance. I've lost pounds since the Lancers. It's hotter than a siesta hour in Madrid. You look cool."
"I don't feel particularly hot. I haven't been dancing. I feel like the skeleton at the feast; I think I shall carry my bones to the club. Will you come?"
"I'm engaged for another turn with Lady Ethel Boisdale," said Leicester Dodson, leaning over the balustrade and skillfully concealing a yawn.
"Lucky dog," said Bertie, enviously.
"Eh?" said Leicester. "By the way, you said she'd half promised you a dance; you don't mean to say you haven't called for payment, Bert; she's the best-looking woman in the room, and the most sensible——"
"Too sensible to dance with Mr. Fairfax, or her mamma has had all her training trouble for nothing," said Bertie.
"Nonsense! She's looking this way; go and ask her, man. I'll wait until the waltz is over, then we'll go on to the club, for, between you and me and that hideous statue, which is all out of drawing, by the way, I have had pretty well enough; and you seem, to judge by your face, to have had a great deal too much."
Bertie, without a word left his friend, fought his way through the crowd, and, after some maneuvering, gained Lady Ethel's side.
"Have you saved me that dance which you half promised me this morning?" he said.
Lady Ethel turned—she did not know that he was so near—and a smile, bright, but transient, passed across her face.