Stephanie, in the mirror of her dressing-table, threw her a kiss.
"No! no!" she said. "But if you don't mind, you might sometime ask Montague Pendleton and Sheldon Burgoyne."
"Together?"
"N—o!" Stephanie hesitated. "I think I'd rather have them apart; at least I would rather have Montague alone—Sheldon doesn't matter."
V THE CUT OF ONE'S CLOTHES
The Emerson pick-up dinner party was a decided success.
Even Pendleton admitted it. As for Burgoyne he was quite enthusiastic—possibly because he sat on Miss Emerson's right. Pendleton was on her left. Lorraine had been taken by the hostess—she was not going to let such an opportunity escape her. Old Emerson was sandwiched between Mrs. Burleston and Mrs. Smithers, and was talking like mad of everything but what he should. His wife could, at intervals, catch portions of his conversation, and she made frantically discreet efforts to flag him, but with no result—either because of the numerous cocktails he had imbibed in the grill, or because he refused to understand. As it was, Mrs. Burleston and Mrs. Smithers, as well as the others near him, were convulsed with merriment as he rattled on, serenely indifferent to his spouse's signals and attempts to distract him.
"Now you see, my dear," he whispered confidentially, leaning over Mrs. Burleston, "it is this way: When me and Sally—Sally was my first wife—was married—we didn't have nary a red—nary a red. She done the cooking and housework, including the washing, and I tended bar for McDivit. You don't remember McDivit, I guess—course not. He was a fine man—a fine man! He kept the old Baroque House—now the Imperial. And I was such a good bartender and mixed 'em so well, only knocked down ten per cent., instead of twenty-five, like the other fellows, that one day he says to me, says he: