What was he here for? He didn't know. The air was heavy with perfume. In the distance music reached him faintly, and the throb and stir and color and glow for some minutes interested him as he glanced around the handsome room with its massed palms, its wealth of flowers, its brilliant lights, and streams of gorgeously gowned women and prosperous-looking men, and then he wondered what had made him start anything of this sort again. To come had been a sudden decision. Long ago the dreariness of functions such as these had caused their giving-up, but a fancy to look once more upon one had possessed him unaccountably, and he had come.
Up-stairs in the men's room his reappearance had been banteringly commented on, and with good-natured hand-shaking he had been welcomed back; but down here many faces were strange and figures unrecognizable; and with something of shock he realized how few were the years necessary to change the personnel of any division of humanity. The heat was intense, and moving farther back toward a screen of palms near a half-open window, he pulled one slightly forward that he might see and not be seen, and again watched each newcomer with mild speculation as to whether he or she were known or not.
For a while it was puzzling, this continuing arrival of new faces, with here and there one he knew well or slightly; but gradually its effect chilled, and he was wondering if he could get away when he heard his name called.
"Winthrop Laine! Of all people!" Miss French held out her hand. "From what loophole were you watching this passing show for man's derision given? May I come in?"
"You may."
Miss French moved behind the palms and pushed a tall leaf aside. "You and I are too old for these things, Winthrop. I don't know why I come—to get away from myself, I suppose. Look at that Miss Cantrell! She parades her bones as if they were a private collection of which she was proud! And did you ever see anything as hideous as that gown Miss Gavins has on? Paris green couldn't be more deadly. I heard Mathilda Hickman tell her just now to be sure and wear it to her dinner next week, it was so becoming; and only yesterday she was shrieking over it at a luncheon where everybody was talking about it, Mr. Trehan is to be at the dinner, and Mathilda wants every woman to look her worst. Hello! There comes Channing and Hope and the cousin from the country. Rather a nice sort of person, awfully young and inexperienced, but—" She put up her lorgnette. "They are talking to Miss Cantrell. Miss Keith is not becoming to Miss Cantrell, or Miss Gavins, either. Her shoulders are excellent and her head perfectly poised. That white dress suits her. Have you been in the dining-room?"
Laine came from behind the palms. "No; I was to wait for Hope. Awfully glad to have seen you, Robin. A stranger in a strange land has a chance, but a man who has lost his place hasn't. People have a way of closing up if you lose step, and I"—he laughed—"I lost step long ago. I'll see you again." And, watching, Miss French saw him take possession of Miss Keith and go with her out of the room.
Half an hour later Laine found a chair for Claudia at the end of the hall opposite the dining-room, and as she sat down he wiped his forehead. "I used to play football, but—"
"You're out of practice? I don't believe you did take more than three men by the shoulders and put them aside. I don't understand football very well, but a dining-room seems to be the center-rush. Please look at that crowd over there!" She nodded toward the open door, through which a mass of men could be seen struggling. "Isn't it queer—the eagerness with which a plate of salad is pursued?"
"And the earnestness with which it is devoured." Laine put his handkerchief in his pocket. Will you wait here a moment until I can get you something? I'll be back—"