"I'd hate to think of your being different."
"Oh, really?" she continued irrelevantly. "You didn't bother your soul about me while you thought I was nothing but a tomboy and a terror! But now when there are a lot of black flies buzzing around me—"
"Now, Patsie, you know that isn't true!"
She relented with a laugh.
"Do you really like me like this? No, don't say anything mushy. I see you do. Oh, dear, I knew this old money would find me," she said, suddenly perceiving a plump youngster with a smirch of a mustache bearing down. "Please, Bojo, come and dance with me—often."
He more than shared the evening with her, quite unconscious of the effect she had made on him, constantly following her in the confusion of the dances, pleased when at a distance she saw his look and smiled back at him.
Meanwhile, in the buffet, Haggerdy and Borneman, in the midst of a group, discussed their host; that is, Borneman discussed and Haggerdy, stolid as a buffalo, with his great emotionless mask, nodded occasionally.
"Well, Dan's at the top," said Marcus Stone. "Dukes come high. What do you think it cost him?"
"Dukes are no longer a novelty," said Borneman. He was rather out of place in this formal gathering, having about him a curious air of always being in his shirt-sleeves. A long, sliding nose, lips pursed like a catfish, every feature seemed alert and pointed to catch the furthest whisper. Stone nodded and moved off. Borneman drew Haggerdy into a corner.