What did he say? What did it mean? His amusement increased with her bewilderment, and before an explanation could be asked or given, Mr. Pemberton took her hand.
Ida had, thus far, passed the dullest of dull evenings. Lynn and Charley, who never let her suffer for attention when they were by, had a business engagement which would detain them until late; it was even doubtful if they could come at all. She talked at a moustached, be-whiskered, and be-imperialed youth who solicited an introduction, because he had heard that she was "smart," and hoped she could appreciate him; his conversational talents compensating in quality for their deficiency in quantity; anybody could talk, but who could dress, and stand, and look as he did? She tried to draw him out by encouraging smiles, and well put queries—he tugged at his waistcoat—she rallied him upon his abstraction—he stroked his left whisker—she pretended offence at one of his milk-and-water responses—he performed the like kindly office to the right—and she gave up in despair.
Mr. De Langue was next. He was "smart" himself, and therefore could appreciate her, and to prove this, he rolled forth volume after volume of French compliments, unanswerable, because so highly polished that one could not, as it were, take hold of them;—edified her by disquisitions upon subjects of which she was profoundly ignorant, and information respecting others, of which she knew more than himself. After much manoeuvring she sought refuge in a corner, fatigued, disgusted and misanthropical. "I have thought that I might shine in general company, where feeling never enters, and flaring flippancy passes for wit; it seemed easy to manufacture small-talk, but I was mistaken. This is 'rational recreation!' the pleasure of mingling in 'the best society,' as Josephine says. I envy St. Simon in his twenty years' solitude upon his stone pillar."
"Compton, my dear fellow, can you make room for me to pass?" said a voice near her. "If I were a lady, I would faint, and let you extricate me, as I am not, I must fight my way out."
The gentleman addressed exerted his powers of compression, and Mr. Lacy edged by him. His course was towards the door, but he stopped as he espied Ida "Miss Ross, have you a welcome in your 'Retreat' for a storm-tossed wanderer? Your quiet nook is most inviting."
Ida looked up mischievously. "I will not hinder your flight, Mr. Lacy. Your envy of my corner is wasted upon one who heard you singing a moment since, like the melancholy starling, 'I can't get out! I can't get out!'"
"I plead guilty—but if a mightier temptation has mastered my desire for liberty? There are birds that will not fly after the cage door is unfastened."
"They do not merit freedom," said she.
"Be it so—this is my prison," rejoined the gentleman, seating himself upon an ottoman which Josephine, to get out of the way, had wedged behind the door, thinking as she did so, that it might prevent the pressure of the crowd from breaking the hinges, with not a presentiment that she was furnishing a hiding-place for the last one of all the world whom she would have concealed.