“I’m getting acclimated. Where’s the colonel to-night? He ought to be around here somewhere.”
“I left him a few moments ago.”
“When you see him again, send him in. He’s a live one, and I like to hear him talk.”
“I’ll go at once,” crushing his cigarette in the Jeypore bowl.
“What’s your hurry? You look like a man who has just lost his job.”
“Been steering a German countess. She was wound up to turn only one way, and I am groggy. I’ll send the colonel over. By-by.”
“Now, what’s stung the boy?”
Nora was enjoying herself famously. The men hummed around her like bees around the sweetest rose. From time to time she saw Courtlandt hovering about the outskirts. She was glad he had come: the lepidopterist is latent or active in most women; to impale the butterfly, the moth falls easily into the daily routine. She was laughing and jesting with the men. Her mother stood by, admiringly. This time Courtlandt gently pushed his way to Nora’s side.
“May I have a dance?” he asked.
“You are too late,” evenly. She was becoming used to the sight of him, much to her amazement.