“A bore! my God!” and the room grew dim, and the lights went out, while before his eyes a maddened crowd came, the dangling neck of a dead jockey rose, and a foam-covered, rearing steed stood, while there was a cry in Emory’s heart: “Cliquot, Cliquot, my beautiful, win for me or I perish!”
“See, I have brought the wine,” and young Clayton stood before them. The girl put the glass to her lips and slowly drank. When she had finished, she toyed with the ice at the bottom of the glass and looked lazier than ever.
“Would you like to dance?” asked Clayton. “I believe there is a band.”
“No,” she replied; “I never dance in a train. It coils about one’s feet so, or gets around a man’s limbs and I am constantly imagining that I am a serpent, coiling and uncoiling in an earthly paradise.”
“A very beautiful and telling comparison,” said Emory.
“But one I don’t like,” added Clayton, “for it leads a fellow to look upon Miss Gwinn as a temptress.”
“Well!” said the girl, with a rippling laugh, “is a little knowledge a dangerous thing?”
The but half-concealed fury which flashed from the young man’s eyes showed Neil Emory a little of the volcano that lurked beneath.
Mrs. Gwinn came up on the arm of a handsome man. He had a courtly bearing, wore his silver hair close cut, had a moustache, a complexion like a girl’s, and was a wealthy sugar planter and desperately enamoured Gwendoline Gwinn, this lovely girl who held her court in the most indolent fashion. Her mother was very gracious in her manner to him, and spoke to her daughter at once.
“Will you come with us, my dear? It is almost time to leave and so many persons are asking where you are.” Then, perceiving Emory, she said: “Have you found a jockey?”