A dark, stylish man was beside her, holding an ice. He brushed some crumbs of cake from his lap, looked up, scowled slightly and spilled the ice.
The girl laughed a little.
“Can I replace it?” asked Neil.
“Oh, no,” she said; “I am glad it’s gone that way! But do you think now that you could manage to procure for me a very small glass of champagne, with quantities of ice—quite a small glass, and mostly ice?”
This she rather murmured than said, leaning back and idly toying with a gauze fan.
“I really don’t think I could,” replied Emory. “You see what a jam there is.”
“I can!” exclaimed the young man beside her, springing to his feet, and before they could utter a word he was gone and Neil had taken his vacant place.
“It’s all an awful bore; don’t you think so?”
He looked at her and, perhaps, heard her, “I do not know.”
Oh! the white throat—the lovely jeweless throat and hands—the glorious violet eyes, that graceful drooping head, with its crown of waving, bronze-hued hair, those supple limbs, clad in a close-fitting robe of green silk!