“Shut up, you jackass,” said Ravenal then, sotto voce.
And “Oho!” bellowed the teaser. “Little Gay’s afraid he’ll get in trouble with his lady friend.”
Gay’s lady friend now disproved for all time her gentleman friend’s recent accusation that she knew nothing about the art of acting. She raised her head and gazed upon the roistering crew about the long table. Her face was very white, her dark eyes were enormous; she was smiling.
“Won’t you introduce me to your friends, Gay?” she said, in her clear and lovely voice.
“Don’t be a fool,” whispered Ravenal, at her side.
The host, Bliss Chapin, stood up rather red-faced and fumbling with his napkin. He was not sober, but his manner was formal—deferential, even. “Mrs.—uh—Rav’nal—I—uh—charmed. I rem’ber seeing you—someone pointed you out in a box at th—th—th—” he gave it up and decided to run the two words together—“ththeatre. Chapin’s my name. Bliss Chapin. Call me Bliss. Ever’body calls me Bliss. Uh—” he decided to do the honours. He indicated each guest with a graceful though vague wave of the hand. “ ’S Tantine . . . Fifi . . . Gerty . . . Vi’let . . . Blanche . . . Mignon. Lovely girls. Lovely. But—we’ll let that pass. Uh . . . Georgie Skiff. . . . Tom Haggerty . . . Billy Little—Li’l’ Billee we call him. Pretty cute, huh? . . . Know what I mean? . . . Dave Lansing . . . Jerry Darling—that’s his actu-al name. Can you ’mazhine what the girls can do with name like that! Boys ’n girls, this’s Mrs. Gaylord Ravenal, wife of the well-known faro expert. An’ a lucky dog he is, too. No offense, I hope. Jus’ my rough way. I’m going to be married to-morr’. An’thing goes ’sevening.”
Prolonged applause and shouting. A twanging of mandolins and banjos.
“Speech!” shouted the man who had first called attention to Magnolia. “Speech by Mrs. Ravenal!”
They took it up shrilly, hoarsely, the Fifis, the Violets, the Billys, the Gertys, the Jerrys. Speech! Speech!
Ravenal got to his feet. “We’ve got to go,” he began. “Sorry——”