CHAPTER X
TONY DANCES INTO A DISCOVERY
Tony was dressing for dinner on her first evening at Crest House. Carlotta was perched on the arm of a chair near by, catching up on mutual gossip as to events that had transpired since they parted a month before at Northampton.
"I have a brand new young man for you, Tony. Alan Massey—the artist. At least he calls himself an artist, though he hasn't done a thing but philander and travel two or three times around the globe, so near as I can make out, since somebody died and left him a disgusting big fortune. Aunt Lottie hints that he is very improper, but anyway he is amusing and different and a dream of a dancer. It is funny, but he makes me think a little bit once in a while of somebody we both know. I won't tell you who, and see if the same thing strikes you."
A little later Tony met the "new young man." She was standing with her friend in the big living room waiting for the signal for dinner when she felt suddenly conscious of a new presence. She turned quickly and saw a stranger standing on the threshold regarding her with a rather disconcertingly intent gaze. He was very tall and foreign-looking, "different," as Carlotta had said, with thick, waving blue-black hair, a clear, olive skin and deep-set, gray-green eyes. There was nothing about him that suggested any resemblance to anyone she knew. Indeed she had a feeling that there was nobody at all like him anywhere in the world.
The newcomer walked toward her, their glances crossing. Tony stood very still, but she had an unaccountable sensation of going to meet him, as if he had drawn her to him, magnet-wise, by his strange, sweeping look. They were introduced. He bowed low in courtly old world fashion over the girl's hand.
"I am enchanted to know Miss Holiday," he said. His voice was as unusual as the rest of him, deep-throated, musical, vibrant—an unforgettable voice it seemed to Tony who for a moment seemed to have lost her own.
"I shall sit beside Miss Tony to-night, Carla," he added. It was not a question, not a plea. It was clear assertion.
"Not to-night, Alan. You are between Aunt Lottie and Mary Frances Day. You liked Mary Frances yesterday. You flirted with her outrageously last night."
He shrugged.