“The dear impertinence,” the lady-dragoness appealed, “of taking that description to yourself!”
“Oh, it was too perfect,” he insisted. “The American with the short hair!”
“And the sweet musician!” Florence teased. A note in her voice took him back to Vienna and their fresher days. He looked at her. She seemed a reawakened memory—flushed cheeks, and a stinging light in her eyes.
“Oh, the sweet musician”—Longacre was very easy about him—“is pigeonholed in New York.”
“What, that dear thing you were playing us catches of last spring?” The dragoness was all vociferous sympathy, but through it he remained aware of Florence Essington’s pure profile averted from him, looking across the room toward a gorgeous, rose-like Julia, blooming, the center of a circle of black coats.
But for Longacre, at that moment, the other side of the room might well have been the other side of the world. As the orchestra slid into a waltz of Strauss, and the lady of dragons was drawn away into the measure, he laid an eager hand on Florence’s arm, with an “Oh, I say, dance this with me!” hard to be denied.
But she nodded across the room toward Thair approaching with long stride and confident smile. “It is promised, but—”
“Well,” he frowned, “the next, then.”
“Well—” she acceded.
“And the next.”