Bellton’s eyes, despite the impression of weakness conveyed by the heavy lenses of his nose-glasses, missed little, and he saw that Duska Filson still looked off abstractedly across the bend of the homestretch, taking no note of his heralding.
“Doesn’t the news of new arrivals excite you, Miss Filson?” he inquired, with a touch of drawl in his voice.
The girl half-turned her head with a smile distinctly short of enthusiasm. She did not care for Bellton. She was herself an exponent of all things natural and unaffected, and she read between the impeccably regular lines of his personality, with a criticism that was adverse.
“You see,” she answered simply, “it’s not news. I’ve seen George since he came.”
“Tell us all about this celebrity,” prompted Miss Buford, eagerly. “What is he like?”
Duska shook her head.
“I haven’t seen him. He was to arrive this morning.”
“So, you see,” supplemented Mr. Bellton with a smile, “you will, after all, have to fall back on me—I have seen him.”
“You,” demurred the débutante with a disappointed frown, “are only a man. What does a man know about another man?”
“The celebrity,” went on Mr. Bellton, ignoring the charge of inefficiency, “avoids women.” He paused to laugh. “He was telling Steele that he had come to paint landscape, and I am afraid he will have to be brought lagging into your presence.”