It seemed hours and hours before that lecture ended, then more hours before the tall restless man and I could make our way through a sea of massaged faces to a distant point where our hostess stood giving directions to a white-coated servant.
She turned to me, with a fluttering little air of regret, when I reached her side.
"Grace, surely you don't have to hurry off at this unchristian hour!" she insisted. "My dear, you really should stay! Solinski has arranged the loveliest spread, and I'm not going to keep the company waiting forever to get to it, either!—The ices will be the surprise of the season."
"I'm sorry," I began, but she interrupted me.
"Why didn't your mother come?"
Already her vague regret over my own hasty departure had melted away, and as she saw the tall man following me, evidently bent upon the same mission as mine, she put her query in a perfunctory way to hide her chagrin.
"Mother couldn't come, Mrs. Walker. There is only one D. A. R. pin in the family, as you know—and I had to wear that."
Maitland Tait, looking over my shoulder, heard my explanation and smiled.
"It is a great deprivation to miss the rest of your charming party, Mrs. Walker," he began, but as he mentioned going, in a cool final voice, our hostess emitted a little terrified shriek.
"What? Not you, too!"