“I’ve counted seven couples,” she gaily responded.
He tightened his arm where her hand lay in it, and she left it there.
“You’ve clinched Lucile’s reputation,” he stated. “She always has been famous for picking good ones; but she saved you for the climax.”
“My happy, happy childhood days,” laughed Gail. “The boys used to talk that way on the way home from school.”
“I don’t doubt it,” and Dick smiled appreciatively. “The dullest sort of a boy would find himself saying nice things to you; but I shall stop it.”
“Oh, please don’t!” begged Gail. “You are so delightful at it.”
He pounced on a corner half hidden by a tub of ferns. There was no bench there, but it was at least semi-isolated, and he leaned gracefully against the window-ledge, looking down at her earnestly as she stood, slenderly outlined against the green of the ferns, in her gown of delicate blue sparkling with opalescent flakes.
“That’s just the trouble,” he complained. “I don’t wish you to be aware that I am saying what you call pretty things. I wish, instead, to be effective,” and there was a roughness in his voice which had come for the first time. She was a trifle startled by it, and she lowered her eyes before the steady gaze which he poured down on her. Why, he was in earnest!
“Then take me to Lucile,” she smiled up at him, and strolled in toward the ballroom.
Willis Cunningham met them at the door.