AS the women dispersed about the long drawing-room Ora laid her arm lightly round the waist of Ida, who was standing for the moment apart.
“Your dinner is a tremendous success, my dear,” she said, “and so are you. That gown! It makes mine look so crude. I wish I had worn white as I intended until the last minute. How splendidly everything went off. Not a detail to criticise, and every woman has worn something new from New York or Paris. But you—well, Ida, you are always beautiful, of course, but tonight you are something more than lovely.”
“Oh, am I?” Ida gave a little gasp, forgetting her passing astonishment at so much tribute from Ora at once. “Well, I ought to be. I never felt quite like this in all my life. Geewhil—no, I’m too happy even for slang. I wish I could sing.”
Ora sighed. “I’ve always known you would get everything you wanted, and I can guess just how you feel tonight. You are a complete success. How many people ever are able to say that?”
“Yes, I feel as if I owned the earth!” But her brows met in a puzzled frown. “I never felt, though, as if even the conquest of Butte would all but send me off my head. I never feel very much excited about any old thing; it’s not my make; but I’ve got a sort of shiver inside of me, and a watery feeling in the heart region. If that chef had spoilt the dinner I’d have gone out and wrung his neck.”
“Well, nothing can go wrong now. The worst is over, and no dinner was ever more delicious. Why don’t you let them dance? I know that Mrs. O’Hara plays.”
“Good idea! I’ll ring this minute for a few of those extra near-waiters to take out the rugs and move the furniture.”
Two of the younger women, who had returned not long since from San Francisco, were showing their scandalised friends the turkey-trot when the men came down the hall from the dining-room. Ida drew Gregory aside.
“Tell me,” she asked, with an eager almost childish note in her voice new to him. “Did it go off well? Am I all I ought to be after all the money you have spent on me? Do I look nice in my fine clothes?”
Gregory patted her on the shoulder. “I know little about such things,” he said kindly, “but it outclassed all the banquets I’ve been obliged to attend in the last six or eight months. I felt quite proud that it was in my own house—yours, to be literal—and Mrs. Blake assured me that she had never seen anything better done.”