"A friend of Jane Marshall's." This (save that he had a trusty face) was all that she knew of Theodore Brower; but she thought it enough.
"And who is Jane Marshall?"
Mrs. Bates gave her questioner one look. "Really, you surprise me," she observed, and said no word more. Within a week Jane was known throughout the inquirer's whole set.
Truesdale presently passed Mrs. Bates with a girl on his arm. "I wonder if that's another one of the tea-pourers?" she asked herself.
It was. Truesdale was escorting Gladys—Gladys McKenna, as her complete name had finally come to him. He had laughed on first hearing it. "There's a chaud-froid for you, sure enough!"
Gladys wore a flame-colored gown, and her eyes, curiously fringed with black above and beneath, had an outré and dishevelled appearance that lingered in the memory as wax-works do. She kept a strong clutch on his arm, and galloped alongside him with a persistent camaraderie which conveyed no hint of cessation.
"Why insist so strongly on a quadrille d'honneur?" he was asking her.
"Wasn't a march good enough?"
"We always look for a quadrille at one of the best functions—at home."
"But why draw lines? You don't object if people meet for pleasure on terms free and equal?"
"Oh, of course if you have no celebrities here—no great figures—"