He roused himself sharply, with a start, and looked around. Whittaker, on his right, was leaning over to Minnie just beyond, his face close to hers, his hand beneath the table. She was answering his glance and his words, her blue eyes dilated below the delicately darkened eyebrows, her loose mouth babbling or, between speeches, drooping sensually. Ames Price was concerned with nothing but the effort to control his intoxication. Stacey turned to the girl beside him.
Her pose was easy and graceful, and the curve of her cheek beneath the mass of her black hair was rather fine. Stacey felt the enigmatic quality about her even now when he could not see her slanting eyes. His knee touched hers, not intentionally but because they were sitting very close together, and she turned her face slowly toward his. Their eyes met. Hers were extraordinarily large and dark, and gazed into his, half curiously, half cynically, for a long moment. Strange eyes, unfathomable! Suddenly dull fire smoldered in them, and Stacey felt dizzy. He shivered,—but so did she; he felt her knee tremble against his. She smiled and lowered her eyes.
“I’ve heard of you, Mr. Carroll,” she observed calmly. “Every one in Vernon has, of course. I’d rather like to have been a man and fought as you’ve fought.”
Clearly she had better self-control than he. He paused before replying.
“Would you, now?” he said then. “That’s odd! You look too properly disdainful to care about fighting, and, as to being a man, you seem to me very thoroughly a woman.”
She looked at him again, squarely, appearing to study him.
“By the way,” he added abruptly, “what’s your name? Your drunken friend presented you merely as Ethel.”
“Wyatt. Ethel Wyatt. It wouldn’t mean anything to you. But I prefer Ames drunk, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
She turned to Price. “Cheer up, Ames, old top!” she cried, in a jovial, quite different voice. “Cocktails! Here’s to you!” And she pushed his glass toward him.