This time he fell into her mood, turning her over to another partner with a confident smile, exhilarated with the thought of little supremacies in regions of brilliant lights and dreamy music. Fred DeLancy, back from a dance with Gladys Stone, stopped him with an anecdote.
"I say, Bojo, wish you could have seen some of the old hens inspecting the palace. You know Mrs. Orchardson, Standard Oil? I was right back of her when she wandered into some Louis or other room, and what did she do? She ran her thumbnail into a partition and whispered to her neighbor: 'Ours is real mahogany'! Don't they love one another, though?"
By the buffet groups of men were smoking, glass in hand, Borneman and Haggerdy talking business. In the ante-chamber where the great marble staircase came winding down, he found Patsie at bay repelling a group of admirers. She signaled him frantically.
"Bojo; rescue me. They're even quoting poetry to me!"
She sprang away and down the stairs to his side, hurrying him off.
"Faster, faster! Isn't there any place we can hide? My ears are dropping off."
"Patsie, I never should have known you!" he said, amazed.
"Well, I'm out!" she said, with an indignant pout. "How do you like me?"
She stood away from him, a little malicious delight in her eyes at his bewilderment, her chin saucily tilted, her profile turned, her little hands balanced in the air.
"This is the way the models pose. Well?"