"I'll do my duty till then," Baird said bruskly. "I hate dancing—except with you."
She allowed him to capture her intimate glance, but the instant she had turned away her face settled into gravity, an expression both hard and apprehensive. It made her look more nearly her age.
"What is it, Ridley?" she asked sharply. "Anything wrong—up-stairs?"
"No, no!" the colonel said. "I just wanted a word with you befo' I've lost my feet—Edward's goin' to have us all under the table befo' mo'nin'." The colonel usually abbreviated his syllables when warmed.
Judith drew a quick breath. "Oh—well, come out to the veranda—"
The entrance to Westmore was the usual Georgian portico; the veranda crossed the back of the house, a gallery, really, overlooking the terraces and connecting the two wings of the house, affording an entrance to the ballroom at one end, to the kitchens at the other, and a rear entrance to the main hall. There were high-backed benches here, and Judith led the way to one of them. She sighed inaudibly as she sat down.
The colonel began promptly: "I wasn't meaning to spoil your dance, Judith, but Mary's been telling me to ask that young friend of Garvin's to our Fair Field meet. Of co's' you can be relied on to choose your friends sensibly, but Garvin's not so certain. Who is this Nickolas Baird? If I introduce him, I've got to stand fo' him. I want to know a little more about him than Mary could tell me. I'll be damned if I'll present him—knowin' no more about him than I do! What's his family?"
"I doubt if he has any," Judith answered equably. "In fact, I know he hasn't—he told me that both his father and his mother were dead."
"You know what I mean, Judith!" the colonel objected warmly.
"Of course the first question would be, 'What's his family?' and the next, 'Has he money?'" There was amusement in Judith's voice. Then she added more seriously, "I really know very little about him, Ridley—except that he seems to be a nice, clever sort of boy. Edward approves of him, so I asked him here. Edwin Carter can tell you more about him than I can. He put him up at the Hunt Club and introduced him to Edward and Garvin. Edwin Carter spoke highly of him."