“I must be going presently, because I shall look in at another reception tonight,” Mrs. Wellford said, arousing him from something like a trance of thought. “I wish you would find my husband for me, Phil. He has stolen off to some quiet corner to smoke, I expect. Tell him I am going in ten minutes.”
“Yes,” he answered, absently, moving away from her side, and wondering why Viola had so suddenly left the room just as he was thinking of bidding her good-night.
He wandered about through the crowded rooms, wondering where he should find Mr. Wellford, who was a successful patent attorney devoted to his business, and secretly bored by gay society, though his wife dragged him into it willy-nilly. Having made his bow to his hostess, he was usually to be found in some secluded spot, seeking solace in a good cigar, and all the happier if he could find some congenial soul to share his pleasure and exchange good stories with him.
He was not in the thronged drawing-room, nor library, nor supper-room, so Desha went along the wide hall, seeking all the open doors, thinking perchance to blunder on a smoking-room.
The scent of a Havana came to him suddenly, promising speedy success, so he stopped abruptly before the half-drawn portière of a small room or alcove, with tall palms and flowering azaleas standing about in a dim, soft light. They had, in fact, been removed here temporarily from the over-crowded conservatory, to make room for the promenading couples tonight.
“He is here, the vandal, with his cigar,” thought Desha, pushing back the curtain and blundering across the threshold.
Some one was there certainly, but not Wellford, and the young man started back, hoping his intrusion might not be observed.
Viola, laboring under strong excitement of mind, exaggerated by his neglect and the keen pathos of her own music, had hidden herself away here for a brief, hysterical outbreak that she could not control.
“Let me steal away awhile
From the revel to the gloom,