"I can't thank you," he said; "I should make a fool of myself."
Bennett nodded pleasantly, and presently both were pressing into the out-going crowd, avoiding each other with the ineradicable instinct of the Englishman.
Wharton did not recover his self-control completely till, after an ordeal of talk and handshaking in the lobby, he was on his way to the Ladies' Gallery. Then in a flash he found himself filled with the spirits, the exhilaration, of a schoolboy. This wonderful experience behind him!—and upstairs, waiting for him, those eyes, that face! How could he get her to himself somehow for a moment—and dispose of that Craven girl?
"Well!" he said to her joyously, as she turned round in the darkness of the Gallery.
But she was seized with sudden shyness, and he felt, rather than saw, the glow of pleasure and excitement which possessed her.
"Don't let's talk here," she said. "Can't we go out? I am melted!"
"Yes, of course! Come on to the terrace. It's a divine evening, and we shall find our party there. Well, Miss Craven, were you interested?"
Edith smiled demurely.
"I thought it a good debate," she said.
"Confound these Venturist prigs!" was Wharton's inward remark as he led the way.