She answered dashingly, "If I answer you in your own language, I'd say that it's because their households are in such a low and lamentably primitive condition that they haven't any slave-labor to leave the children with, and so bring them along out of mere brute necessity. If I answer you in another vocabulary, I'd say that there is a close feeling of family unity, and they like to have their children with them when they are having a good time, and find it pleasant to see mothers dancing with their little boys and fathers with their little girls."
Without the slightest premonition of what his next question was to bring out, and only putting it to keep the talk going, Vincent challenged her, "Why don't you bring your own, then?" He kept down with difficulty the exclamation which he inwardly added, "If you only knew what a relief it is to see you for once, without that intrusive, tiresome bunch of children!"
"Why, sometimes I do," she answered in a matter-of-fact tone. "But I just had a telegram from my husband saying that he is able to get home a little sooner than he thought, and will be here early tomorrow morning. And the children voted to go to bed early so they could be up bright and early to see him."
Vincent continued looking down on her blankly for an instant, after she had finished this reasonable explanation. He was startled by the wave of anger which spurted up over him like flame.
He heard Mr. Welles make some suitable comment, "How nice." He himself said, "Oh really," in a neutral tone, and turned away.
For a moment he saw nothing of what was before him, and then realized that he had moved next to Frank Warner, who was standing by Nelly Powers, and asking her to dance with him again. She was shaking her head, and looking about the room uneasily. Vincent felt a gust of anger again. "Oh, go to it, Frank!" he said, in a low fierce tone. "Take her out again, as often as you like. Why shouldn't you?"
Nelly gave him one of her enigmatic looks, deep and inscrutable, shrugged her shoulders, put her hand on Frank's arm, and walked off with him.
"They're the handsomest couple in the room," said Vincent, at random to a farmer near him, who looked at him astonished by the heat of his accent. And then, seeing that Nelly's husband was in possible earshot, Vincent raised his voice recklessly. "They're the handsomest couple in the room," he repeated resentfully. "They ought always to dance together."