“Well, I am. About this hour I often get like that. Come and have a small lobster. It’ll do you good, I’m sure.”
The invitation was declined. Conversationally he could not knock any sparks out of the pretty and clever little American, whom he liked as much as any girl he had come across lately.
Bill was concerned. She looked as if she would be all the better for a good cry. Something had happened, something pretty serious, but there was no means of knowing what. And such a pretty little puss! There was a touching look about her. Bill was a chivalrous young man; and at that moment he felt he could ask nothing better than to stand between this attractive little girl and the rubs of a hard world.
Notwithstanding an honest need of luncheon Bill could not deny any solace it might be his to afford. He took a seat by the side of Miss Du Rance and prattled charmingly on.
“You’re goin’, of course, to that dance on the second at Clanborough House?”
Miss Du Rance said rather miserably that she didn’t know.
“Don’t know.” Consternation was in the tone. “I understood from Vi that you were going with her.”
Mame shivered slightly in her thin spring suit. But the winds of Britain cannot be trusted right up till the end of June.
“It’ll be the best rag of the season. All the folks will be there. You must come—you simply must. Best floor in London. Capital supper. Rippin’ band. Uncle J. and Aunt E. always do things top hole. Jolly sitting-out place in the small library downstairs. Everybody don’t know it, though, which makes it so much the jollier.”
But Miss Du Rance did not respond. There was something seriously wrong with the girl.