She gave a dry laugh. "Afraid they'll compromise me?"
"Oh, rot! But what's the use of their even knowing you're here? They'll hate your butting in, Lita worst of all."
"Stan, I'm going up to them."
"Oh, damn it. You always—"
She had got up and was pushing away the little table in front of them. But suddenly she stopped and sat down again. For a moment or two she did not speak, nor look at Heuston. She had seen the massive outline of a familiar figure rising from a seat near the front and planting itself there for a slow gaze about the audience.
"Hallo—your father? I didn't know he patronized this kind of show," Heuston said.
Nona groped for a careless voice, and found it. "Father? So it is! Oh, he's really very frivolous—my influence, I'm afraid." The voice sounded sharp and rattling in her own ears. "How funny, though! You don't happen to see mother and Amalasuntha anywhere? That would make the family party complete."
She could not take her eyes from her father. How queer he looked—how different! Strained and vigilant; she didn't know how else to put it. And yet tired, inexpressibly tired, as if with some profound inner fatigue which made him straighten himself a little too rigidly, and throw back his head with a masterful young-mannish air as he scanned the balcony just above him. He stood there for a few moments, letting the lights and the eyes concentrate on him, as if lending himself to the display with a certain distant tolerance; then he began to move toward one of the exits. But half way he stopped, turned with his dogged jerk of the shoulders, and made for a gangway leading up to the balcony.
"Hullo," Heuston exclaimed. "Is he going up to Lita?"
Nona gave a little laugh. "I might have known it! How like father—when he undertakes anything!"