“Not in the least.”
“You haven’t listened to a word I’ve been saying, and it was so interesting.”
He laughed.
“What were you thinking of?”
“My sins.”
“Then I don’t wonder that you looked so badly.”
But it was clear that she understood him, for after a short silence she spoke of other things.
The dinner having progressed to the salad course, visiting was in order, and the guests sauntered from table to table, exchanging chairs and partners. Jane Loring was one of the first to take advantage of this opportunity to escape, and found a seat at Honora Ledyard’s table between Bibby Worthington and Percy Endicott.
Nellie Pennington watched her departure calmly, for she had learned what she had set out to learn. All women, no matter how youthful, are clever at dissimulation, but the art being common to all women, deceives none. And Jane, skillful though she had been in hiding her thoughts from Gallatin, deceived neither Nellie Pennington nor Nina Jaffray.
Dinner over, Nellie Pennington followed the crowd to the gunroom. The married set were already at their auction and somebody beckoned to her to make a four, but she refused. On this night she had a mission. She wandered from group to group, keeping one eye on Jane and the other on Phil, until the music began, when with one accord, all but the most devoted of the bridge-players returned to the hall, from which the furniture had been cleared, and where the polished wax surface shone invitingly. Mrs. Pennington waited until the waltz was well under way and saw Jane Loring circling the room safely with Larry Kane, when she went into the library alone. Her thought had crystallized into a definite plan.