We were at supper. The chaperons had at length completed their well-earned repast, and had returned, flushed and loquacious, to the dancing-room, yielding their places to the hungry throng who had been waiting outside the door.
The last waltz had been played by Miss Sissie Croly, in good time and with considerable spirit, an act of coquettish self-abnegation which elicited many tender reproaches from her forsaken partner. Making the most of the temporary improvement in the music, Nugent and I had danced without stopping, until a series of sensational flourishes announced that the end of the waltz was at hand. After it was over, he had suggested supper, and we had secured a small table at the end of the supper-room, from which, in comparative quiet, we could view the doings of the rest of the company. I was guiltily conscious of the large “W” scrawled across the supper extras on my card; but a latent rebellion against my cousin’s unauthorized appropriation conspired with a distinct desire for food to harden my heart. I made up my mind to do what seemed good to me about one at least of the extras, and dismissed for the present all further thought of Willy and his possible grievances.
I found myself possessed of an excellent appetite. Nugent’s invention as a caterer soared above the usual chicken and jelly, and we both made what, in the land of my birth, would be described as a “square meal.”
Meanwhile, the centre table was surrounded by what looked like a convivial party of lunatics. Miss Burke and Dr. Kelly had set the example of decorating themselves with the coloured paper caps contained in the crackers, and the other guests had instantly adopted the idea. Mob-caps, night-caps, fools’-caps, and sun-bonnets nodded in nightmare array round the table, Miss Burke’s long red face showing to great advantage beneath a pale-blue, tissue-paper tall hat.
“I feel I have been very remiss in not offering to pull a cracker with you,” said Nugent, “but I am afraid they have all been used up by this time!”
“Why did I not go in to supper with Dr. Kelly?” I said regretfully. “If the worst came to the worst, I am sure he would have taken off his own sun-bonnet and put it on my head!”
“Go in with him next time,” suggested Nugent. “He always goes in to supper two or three times, and works his way each time down the table like a mowing-machine, leaving nothing behind him. At the masonic ball in Cork he was heard saying to his sisters, as they were going in to supper, ‘Stuff, ye divils! there’s ice!’”
“Quite right, too,” I said, beginning upon the tipsy cake which Nugent had looted for our private consumption. “I always make a point of stuffing when there is ice. However, I think on the whole I have had enough of Dr. Kelly for one evening. I have danced once with him, and I suppose it is because he is at least a foot shorter than I am that he makes himself about half his height when he is dancing with me. But I think all small men do that; the taller their partner, the more they bend their knees.”
Nugent laughed. “I have been watching you dancing with all sorts and conditions of men, and wondering what you thought of them. I also wondered if you would find them sufficiently amusing to induce you to stay on till No. 18?” he said, putting his elbows on the table and looking questioningly at me.
“Oh, I hope so—at least—of course, that depends on your mother,” I answered.