AS a matter of fact, it was Janet's sense of propriety in public that was offended more than anything else. As for Claude, he was only less mortified by the affront to his vanity than by the haunting fear that Janet's rebuff came from genuine dislike.
No girl had ever given the brilliant, impetuous Claude Fontaine a glance of undisguised repugnance.
Janet spent the rest of the evening chiefly in conversation with Robert Lloyd and Mark Pryor. Meanwhile, Claude affected a complete indifference to her actions. He threw himself into the party with a mad abandon, and whipped up the conviviality with a riotous, headstrong wildness until everybody voted it the merriest evening in years. Amongst the other sex, he exploited to the utmost his patrician graces and masculine daring, and was so much the center of the occasion that the party might have been his rather than Janet's.
The women thought him magnificent, graceful, cruel—in a word, irresistible; the men laughed at his impudence, and envied or admired his readiness, effrontery and ease.
And yet, as he showed his fine points triumphantly now to this adoring girl and now to that, his voice vibrated towards Janet.
Janet took it all in, and continued talking to Robert with undisturbed satisfaction. She saw Claude pass recklessly from one favorite to another, and guessed easily that none of these was his real aim.
When the party broke up, Claude induced Janet to listen to him alone for a moment. He was suddenly all contrition. To his whispered plea for forgiveness, she said, in a not unkindly tone:
"Forgiveness for what? For advertising your emotions?"
"For the kiss," he said, his voice full of sensuous charm. And he added, on a more audacious note: "I wish I could take it back."
"Oh, do you? You'd better begin with the publicity."