"If that isn't the third invite this evening! Cornelia, you're a perfect pig. Rob, pale face never won fair lady."
"Mazie, your ignorance of human nature is appalling," said Robert. "What you really ought to say is that pale faces never count their chickens till they're hatched."
"Is that so, Mr. Cleverdick? Well, listen to me. Cornelia likes her men in three dimensions, not in two. That's why she's going out with Hutch."
"Well, if Rob is two dimensions," said Claude, "Hutch is eight or ten."
Robert joined in the general laughter; Mazie's manner was really very friendly to him, although the banter sounded spiteful. Cornelia now insisted that they were all to join her and Burley at supper; and Robert, under pressure, consented to make a fifth.
Robert was by no means as unprepossessing as Mazie's brusque remarks might have led one to infer. True, he was not handsome, dashing, and meteoric like Claude Fontaine. He was of medium height and slender, with a figure touched by poetry and grace. Women described him as "so nice" until, scorched by his flaming spirit, they learnt that ideas, and ideas alone, could make him incandescent.
"Lucky you left after Hutchins bowled us over," he said to Claude. "The rest of the meeting was dry as dust."
"I thought as much," said Claude. "What happened?"
"It was voted to supplement the main affair of the ball with a few side features."
"Like what?"