“There’s really nothing to be gained by discussing the proposition yet,” he said. “We’ve been so busy in the House, I haven’t had time to think about it.”
“No matter. We can become friends,” she murmured, significantly. “Can’t we?”
A sudden silence relieved him of the necessity to answer. Dr. Prendergast had run down, and was looking at Mrs. Barrington.
“Positively the most interesting thing I ever heard,” she cried. “Toddles, I wish you could invent something other than tarradiddles. Do send me an autographed bottle, Doctor! I haven’t a thing the matter with me, and don’t promise to use it. I’m so disgustingly healthy. But I’d love to have it to put on the shelf with my signed books and other treasures. Won’t it be nice, Toddles?”
Azalea bent her head above her plate and scarcely knew whether to be angry or amused. Sitting on the same side of the table as Mrs. Barrington, Dilling and the Doctor, neither she nor her partner, Leeds, could see exactly what was going on. But what she did not divine, was reflected in the varying expressions of Turner, who sat on Mrs. Pratt’s left, Eva Leeds and Marjorie. Even Pratt, who had fallen an instant and unresisting victim to Hebe Barrington’s charms, gave her more than inkling of the by-play at the other end of the table.
She was very much alive to the presence of Sullivan, who sat directly opposite and assumed towards Marjorie an air of offensive proprietorship. Prejudiced against him perhaps by the opinion of her friends, she had never felt for the man active dislike until this moment when every slanderous tale she had heard leaped into her mind. Although he had become a frequent visitor at the Dilling home, she had met him for the first time this evening, and had not the slightest desire to continue the acquaintance. Furthermore, she wondered if Marjorie could be persuaded to put an end to such a friendship.
“Are you having a good time, little woman?” she heard him whisper.
“Yes, thank you,” replied Marjorie, hoping that telling a polite lie would not be a sin.
“Not so good as though we were having dinner alone—without all these dull people?”
“No,” admitted Marjorie.