“I’m spending the winter with my sister. The family is gone—by family, I mean mother and father—gone South—and I live partly at home in the empty house and partly at my sister’s, playing with her children.”
The music stopped definitely, deaf to the entreaties of clapping hands.
“Can I take you for a ride one of these days? I suggest that because you said you’d like it.”
“I can’t tell when I can get off.”
“Let me telephone and re-telephone—this proves that you get off sometimes.”
She liked his half-laughing persistence.
“I’d like to ride with you in that car of yours,” she told him.
He smiled down at her in healthy young friendliness and suddenly the people to whom she was returning seemed very unreal and pretentious. He did not ask any of the others for dances but went back to his table.
“You made a very handsome couple,” said Rose Hubbell, sweetly. “Didn’t they, Jim?”
Langley looked tired. He said merely that it was Horatia’s dance with him. As before, they danced without a word.