"Mrs. Hofer has no conservatory. Great oversight. But I did sit out a dance or two in that room with the immense window—"
"With whom?"
"I have forgotten her name. Will you have a cigarette?"
"No, but you may smoke if you like."
He had settled himself in a deep chair on the opposite side of the hearth. There was a silence of nearly ten minutes, until Isabel, suddenly removing her coat, brought Gwynne out of his reverie.
"I cannot say that to-night was in any sense a repetition of my own experience at Arcot," he said, abruptly. "That night—I have tried to forget it—I had enough adulation to turn any man's head. I fancy it was pretty well turned, and that made the wrench during the small hours the more severe. Still, it has been an interesting evening, and one or two things happened."
"What?" Isabel was full of her own experiences, but too much of a woman to betray the fact when a man wanted to talk about himself.
"I danced for a while, but I had had exercise enough during the day, and didn't care particularly about it. Besides, all the girls I danced with, and that one I sat up-stairs with for a few minutes, not only talked my head off, but quizzed me, and I did not understand it. To my amazement, I learned not long after that they know who I am. Can you imagine how it got out?"
"They know everything. It is an old saying that the San Francisco girls scent a stranger the moment he leaves the tram at the Oakland mole, and know all about him before he has registered. The obscurest knight could not hide himself in this town. Rosewater alone saved you so long. How did they quiz you?"
"Each began at once to talk about my 'distinguished relative, Elton Gwynne.' I may be more dense than most, or perhaps I was merely bored, but I assumed that they thought I was his brother and knew his whereabouts. When supper was half over, and I was congratulating myself that I had got out of the cotillon, even with you, for it meant dancing with a lot of others, my host took me firmly by the arm and marched me up-stairs. He informed me that he was 'bored stiff,' could see that I was, and had 'coralled' a few more choice spirits. We went, not to the smoking or billiard-room, but to his own bedroom, and here I found four or five more of your strenuous millionaires, the reform editor, and the lawyer that looks like a bull-dog waiting for the word to spring at the throat of the Boss and his whole vile crew.