“Go along in, old man, and see the ladies. Take out Pauline. Mrs. Lessing isn't dancing. Make a sitting-out engagement with the lovely widow, then bolt out here. That's my advice,” urged Macauley.
“Much obliged, I will. Wouldn't have come if Winifred hadn't cornered me.”
“She's doing her duty by Pauline, and she considers her duty isn't done till she's secured the men Pauline wants. But I say—when you get a look at Ellen you'll forget the rivulets coursing down your neck. It's the first time she's worn anything not suggestive of past experiences. It's only white tonight, but—” Macauley's pause was eloquent.
Burns pushed on into the house, through whose open doors and windows came sounds of revelry. A stringed orchestra was playing somewhere out of sight, and to its music the late arrival, holding his head well up that he might keep his collar intact until the latest possible moment, set his course toward his hostess.
Outside, in the bower which had been made of the porch, Chester, disgracefully shuffling off the duties of host and lounging with Macauley and two or three other of the young married men, reported through the flower-hung window the progress of the victim led to the sacrifice.
“He's shouldered his way to Win—he's shaking hands and trying not to look hot. Hi! Pauline's sighted him already. She's making for him like the arrow to the target.”
“Or the bullet for the hippopotamus,” suggested Macauley under his breath in Chester's ear. He, too, began to reconnoiter.
“He's asking her if she saved the first one for him, and she's telling him she did till the last minute. Her card is full now, but he shall have the last half of this next one. Doesn't he look overjoyed?” Chester chuckled wickedly.
“Where's Ellen? Why isn't she on deck now just as Red comes?” Macauley began to fume. “She's behaved nobly all the evening so far—she might have a rational being how for a partner as her reward. But I presume she's sitting out somewhere with that chump of a Wardlaw—he follows her like a shadow and she's too kindhearted to shake him. She's—”
A voice speaking softly from the lawn below the porch interrupted him. “Is Doctor Burns here?” it asked.