"Hoping to find me unhappy enough with Bel——?"
"That's unworthy of you, Cinda. No: simply to be in the same world with you."
After a little Mrs. Bellamy Druce said severely: "Dobbin, if you keep on that tack, you will make me cross with you; and that wouldn't be nice, when I'm so glad to see you. Let's talk about anything else. How does New York look to an exile of long standing? Much changed?"
"Oh, I don't know. Skirts and morals both a bit higher, jazz a little more so, Prohibition just what one expected, society even more loosely constituted—a vast influx of new people. Time was when it would have seemed odd to see a strange face at one of the Sedley's dinners. But tonight—I don't know half these people. Astonishing lot of pretty girls seem to have sprung up since my time. Who's the raving beauty on Bill Sedley's right?"
"Amelie Severn, Amelie Cleves that was before she married. Surely you remember her."
Daubeney stared in unaffected wonder.
"Good heavens! she was in long dresses when I saw her last."
"Pretty creature, don't you think?"
"Rather. Can't blame the chap next her for his open infatuation."
Laughter thrilled in Lucinda's reply: "Why, don't you recognize him? That's Bel."