This brought Artie from his trance sufficiently to cause him to turn his attention to Cary, but it was so palpably forced that Cary devoted herself with ardour to Jimmie, and left Artie speechless.
Then something spurred Flora to do a foolish thing. She deliberately began to bait Cary—to say things to annoy her—to try to mortify her. At first Cary refused to see what was evident to the rest of us. (Oh, my dinner-party was proving such a success!)
At this critical juncture, Mary appeared bearing the chafing-dish full of blazing, flaming peaches, and in watching me ladle the fiery liquid, hostilities were for the moment discontinued. Involuntarily, as Mary's satisfied countenance betokened her complete happiness at the successful culmination of the dinner, my eyes wandered to the dining-room windows. I had drawn the shades with my own hand, but some mysterious agent had been at work, for they were let fly to the very window-tops.
I glanced at Mary. She pressed her lips together with a whimsical twist, and surreptitiously raised a finger in sly warning.
"Them rubbers are having a fit!" she murmured in my ear, as she deferentially took a blazing peach from me, and placed it before Flora with a look so black it seemed to say:
"If you get your deserts, you little blister, it would set fire to you!"
They were talking about love when I began listening again,—and Cary made some remark inaudible to me, which gave Flora the opportunity to say:
"Is it true, then, what I have heard? Were you ever disappointed in love?"
"Always!" said Cary, evenly.
Jimmie grinned and jogged my elbow.