Anthony smoked a cigarette in acute misery; already his neck felt scraped raw; a button flew jubilantly from his waistcoat; and his improvised studs failed in their appointed task. “I'm having the hell of a good time, I am,” he told Ellie satirically.
They turned between stone pillars supporting a lighted grill, advanced over a winding driveway to Hydrangea House, where they waited for a motor to move from the brilliantly-illuminated portal. A servant directed Anthony to the second floor, where he found a bedchamber temporarily in service as coat room, occupied by a number of men. Most of them he knew, and nodded shortly in return to their careless salutations. They belonged to a variety that he at once envied and disdained: here they were thoroughly at ease, their ties irreproachable, their shirts without a crease. Drawing on snowy gloves they discussed women and society with fluency, gusto, emanating an atmosphere of cocktails.
Anthony produced his gloves in a crumpled wad from the tail of his coat and fought his way into them. He felt rather than saw the restrained amusement of his fellows. They spoke to him gravely, punctiliously proffered cigarettes; yet, in a vague but unmistakable manner, he was made to feel that he was outside their interests, ignorant of their shibboleth. In the matter of collars alone he was as a Patagonian to them. He recalled with regret the easy familiarity, the comfort, of Doctor Allhop's drugstore.
Then, throwing aside cigarettes, patting waistcoats into position, they streamed down to the music. The others found partners immediately, and swung into a onestep, but Anthony stood irresolutely in the doorway. The girls disconcerted him with their formal smiles, their bright, ready chatter. But Ellie rescued him, drawing him into the dance. After which he sought the porch that, looped with rosevines, crossed the face of the long, low house. There, with his back against a pillar, he found a cool spot upon the tiles, and sought such comfort as he could command.
Long windows opening from the ballroom were now segments of whirling color, now filled with gay streams, ebbing and returning. Fragmentary conversation, glowing cigarettes, surrounded him. Behind the pillar at his back a girl said, softly, “please don't.”
Then he saw Ellie, obviously searching for him, and he rose. At her side was a slim figure with a cloud of light hair. “There he is!” Ellie exclaimed; “Eliza... my brother, Anthony.”
He saw that her eyes opened widely, and that her hair was a peculiar, bright shade. Ginger-colored, he thought. “I made Ellie find you,” she told him; “you know, you must ask me to dance; I won't be ignored at my own party.”
He muttered awkwardly some conventional period, annoyed at having been found, intensely uncomfortable. In a minute more he found himself dancing, conscious of his limp tie, his crumpled and gaping shirt. He swung his partner heavily across the room, colliding with a couple that he shouldered angrily aside. The animation swiftly died from Eliza Dreen's countenance; she grew indifferent, then cold. And, when the music ceased, she escaped with a palpable sigh of relief. He was savagely mopping his heated face on the porch when, at his elbow, a clear voice captured his attention. “A dreadful person,” it said, “... like dancing with a locomotive... A regular Apache.”
He turned and saw that it was Eliza Dreen, gathering from her swift concern both that he had been the subject of her discourse, and that she was aware that he had overheard it. Back at his post at the pillar he promised himself grimly that never again would he be found in such specified company. He stripped his gloves from his wet palms, and flung them far across the lawn, then recklessly eased his collar. There was a sudden whisper of skirts behind him, when Eliza seated herself on the porch's edge, at his side.