"What did he say?" asked Bond sharply.
"Oh, never mind! It was one of those cannon-ball compliments that leave you stunned and breathless, but willing to be stunned again. What do you think of my togs?" she asked, generally.
"Look at this jacket while it's a novelty," she went on without waiting for any response. "The girls were all tremendously taken by it; I noticed a dozen of them trying to see how it was made.—Oh, how do?" she said airily to Abner, who came up just then. Having perceived Medora in her remote corner, he had finally summoned enough resolution to make his first movement of the evening: leaving Edith Whyland in the company of Dr. Gowdy, he had succeeded in crossing the intervening leagues alone and unaided.
Abner frowned to find this pert little piece cutting in ahead of him in such a fashion. "How do you do?" he responded stiffly.
"They'll all be making ones like it," Clytie rattled on. "By next Sunday every street from Poplar Alley to Flat-iron Park will swarm with them, and not a milliner's window along the length of Green-gage Road but will have three or four of these toques on display. Yes, sir; I'm a power in the Ward already, let me tell you."
Bond placed his small hand on Abner's broad shoulder. "Isn't she a winner?" he murmured ecstatically. "If Medora, now, could only have done something as spirited and unconventional——"
"I have no fault to find with Miss Giles," retorted Abner in a stern undertone. "To me she is perfectly satisfactory. She will always do the right thing in the right way, and always be a lady."
Bond withdrew his hand. "Oh, come, I say," he began protestingly.
Abner ignored this. "How about the basket-weaving?" he asked Clytie.
"Well," Clytie responded hardily, "I found plenty teaching that already. I have chosen for my department instruction in tact, taste, dress and manners. Such instruction is badly needed, in more quarters than one."