“Of course.”
His partner put her hand on Anthony’s arm, acknowledging a hurried introduction to Horatia.
“Weird place, isn’t it?” she said. “Here, Anthony, we’re holding up traffic. We’d all better be moving.”
He put a deft arm about the girl’s shoulders, glancing back at Horatia.
“May I have the next fox-trot?”
Horatia nodded and steered her little man away in a series of contortions to that oasis of safety—their table.
“Tired—already?” he inquired fatuously.
She sat surveying the members of her group as they came back to the table and was struck by the fact that the women looked very stupid. And the men. The men were “out for a good time,” and that meant an individual reason in each case.
Langley was drawing out Rose Hubbell’s chair. She was wearing a black dinner-dress that fitted her suppleness like a glove and her long black earrings set off that perfect paleness and blondness. Horatia felt that she was the redeeming feature of the party. But she didn’t like Jim’s closeness to Rose. She didn’t like the way he was arranging the scarf about her shoulders. She reminded herself that Jim had begged her not to come tonight but to spend the evening alone with him and that she herself had insisted that they had no right to spoil Mrs. Hubbell’s party after they half agreed to come. Perhaps, after all, this had allured her—this glare and noise and excitement.
“You’re so solemn, Horatia dear.”