"Kissed me," she sighed. "Oh, well, a party's a party. But I wouldn't let him do it again."
"Would you like to have me lick him?" asked Bill, his voice slightly trembling.
"Lick him? What in the world for? Because he didn't know? Why, what a queer person you are!"
Bill felt that he was, indeed, a very queer person. He was the owner of a party at which his valet had danced twice with one of his guests and kissed her as an additional token of democracy! He did not know whether to rage or laugh. But—oh, if Aunt Caroline ever heard of it! Or his secretary!
"Perhaps you'd like to dance with me," she added.
Bill was startled. But he mumbled an affirmative.
"Let's go, then," and she trotted down-stairs ahead of him, as eager as a kitten chasing a paper ball.
In the lower hall Bill felt a touch on his arm and turned to face Mary Wayne.
"May I interrupt just a moment?" she asked. Then to the girl: "I know you'll excuse me. I won't keep Mr. Marshall a minute."
The small one in the blue dress gave a frightened stare at Bill, shrieked and fled into the crowd.