“My dear Pierre, Sam’s quite wretched,” confessed Rose.
“Really? Oh, I’m so sorry!”
“Nothing serious. Just one of his old attacks of neuralgia,” she explained. “He came home early and went to bed. I told him he was better off there than trying to buoy himself up with all these people. You know how Sam loathes big parties.” She bent close to him. “Tell me, is the room pretty?”
“Simply stunning. Rose, you’re wonderful. Do you know that before I came up to you to-night, I stood for a long moment watching you. Is there anything lovelier than a beautiful woman? How well Marie does your hair.”
“Hush, Pierre! I implore you.”
“You’re gorgeously beautiful, Rose.”
“Pierre—do be careful.”
“You dear,” he added. The two words spoken just audibly enough to reach her heart unnoticed. Then with a bow that would have done honor to a diplomat, he raised her small hand to his lips, and disappeared in the throng to find a vacant gilded chair.
He found it close to the stage, next to pretty little Mrs. Selwyn-Rivers, who had been anxiously keeping it for him, and whose husband, Colonel Selwyn-Rivers, had granted her a snug fortune and a separation, and made no bones about either. She was in pink to-night, and now that Pierre was seated, in a good-humor, and while the six wise men drew their bows through the first and second part of a Mozart symphony, kept up a whispered conversation to Lamont over the care and breeding of Scotch terriers; neither the operatic arias of Madame Pavia Visconti, nor the heroic souls that Mr. Gwyn-Jones, basso, confined to the depths of the deep sea, the blacksmith’s forge, or the dark forest, could shake this exquisite little blonde with her retroussé nose, who flirted as easily as she lied, from declaring, as she babbled on, that her Belle of Dinmont II was a better dog than Lucie Vernier’s Scotch Lassie, and if the judges had not seen it, it was due to that lady in question’s absurd attentions to Jack Farrell, who, Lamont agreed, was as clever a judge of terriers as existed.
And so the musicale proceeded. Warmed and wakened up by the terrapin and champagne, they actually listened to Sue’s fresh young voice, and applauded her vociferously. It was not until her first encore that she caught sight of Mr. Joseph Grimsby standing by the door. Joe, who at parties was usually irrepressible and in a rollicking good-humor, two qualities that made him a favorite with the débutantes wherever he went, stood listening attentively. Indeed, that young gentleman was drinking in every note; notes that reached Joe’s heart to-night—more than that, he realized that Sue was an artist, whether she was conscious of it or not.