“Please pardon the informality,” he said, with an affability that cloaked the impertinence. “We are quite a family party at Maloja. I hear you are staying here some weeks, and we are bound to get to know each other sooner or later.”
Helen could dance well. She was so mortified by the injustice meted out to her that she almost accepted de la Vere’s partnership on the spur of the moment. But her soul rebelled against the man’s covert insolence, and she said quietly:
“No, thank you. I do not care to dance.”
“May I sit here and talk?” he persisted.
“I am just going,” she said, “and I think Mrs. de la Vere is looking for you.”
By happy chance the woman in question was standing alone in the center of the ball room, obviously in quest of some man who would take her to the foyer for a cigarette. Helen retreated with the honors of war; but the irresistible one only laughed.
“That idiot Georgie told the truth, then,” he admitted. “And she knows what the other women are saying. What cats these dear creatures can be, to be sure!”
Spencer happened to be an interested onlooker. Indeed, he was trying to arrive at the best means of obtaining an introduction to Helen when he saw de la Vere stroll leisurely up to her with the assured air of one sated by conquest. The girl brushed close to him as he stood in the passage. She held her head high and her eyes were sparkling. He had not heard what was said; but de la Vere’s discomfiture was so patent that even his wife smiled as she sailed out on the arm of a youthful purveyor of cigarettes.
Spencer longed for an opportunity to kick de la Vere; yet, in some sense, he shared that redoubtable lady-killer’s rebuff. He too was wondering if the social life of a Swiss hotel would permit him to seek a dance with Helen. Under existing conditions, it would provide quite a humorous episode, he told himself, to strike up a friendship with her. He could not imagine why she had adopted such an aloof attitude toward all and sundry; but it was quite evident that she declined anything in the guise of promiscuous acquaintance. And he, like her, felt lonely. There were several Americans in the hotel, and he would probably meet some of the men in the bar or smoking room after the dance was ended. But he would have preferred a pleasant chat with Helen that evening, and now she had gone to her room in a huff.
Then an inspiration came to him. “Guess I’ll stir up Mackenzie to send along an introduction,” he said. “A telegram will fix things.”