“It’s wonderful,” sneered Morrison.
“Yes, it is a wonder, my dear fellow; but you set me such an example.”
The two habitués of the stalls nodded to one another their approbation of the retort, and Madame Dorinde, to calm what threatened to be one ebullition with another, called for champagne.
As the dinner went on, the elements of discord began to leaven the party with greater effect, and a calm observer would have felt sure that the evening would not pass away without a quarrel. Morrison slighted his hostess more than once, and a redder spot burned in her cheeks right in the centre of a rather unnatural tint, while Huish, out of sheer bravado, on seeing how Morrison kept trying to draw Grace into conversation, directed his to Madame Dorinde.
“By the way, why hasn’t Malpas come?” said Morrison at last. “I expected to see him here with little Merelle.”
“Better employed, perhaps,” said Madame Dorinde tartly; and the young girl with the youthful look laughed very heartily.
“I say, Huish,” said Morrison at last, on finding that his attentions to Grace were resented by her companion, “I shall see little fair somebody to-morrow. You know whom I mean. What tales I might tell!”
“Tell them, then,” said Huish sharply; “perhaps I shall retort by telling too.”
“Oh, tut, tut, tut!” cried Dorinde. “Nobody tells tales out of school.”
“This is not the School for Scandal, then,” said one of the habitués of the stalls; and the fair young lady laughed again.