His sense of divination had so startled her that she turned from him a moment, wondering what attitude to assume. While feigning to listen to the declaiming of Harrigan Blood, she took every opportunity to study him. Massingale, scarcely forty, had an intellectual aristocracy about him that lay in the impersonality of his amused study of others. Yet in this scrutiny there was no accent of criticism. His lips were relaxed in a tolerant humor, and this smile puzzled her. Was he also of this company who sought amusement in a descent to other levels, or was he simply an observer, a man who had ended a phase of life, but who still delighted in the contemplation of the ridiculous, the grotesque and the absurdity of these petty contests of wits? She was aware that he had attacked her imagination in a way no man had tried before, and this presumption awoke an instant spirit of resistance. She stole a glance from time to time in the mirror, but she avoided opportunities for conversation.
From the farther end of the table she beheld the guest of the day radiating happiness under a storm of questions from the chorus girls:
"Perfectly horrid of you to call yourself count!"
"Count, lord, I've got a string of 'em!"
"Barons."
"Dukes, too. I know Duke of What's-His-Name Biscay. He's a nice boy! Do you know him?"
And Georgie Gwynne, flushed with her first success, said to Harrigan Blood, in a permeating aside:
"When I get to His Nibs, watch what I'll hand him!"
But Harrigan Blood, absorbed in an idea, answered her:
"Be quiet now, Georgie—gorge yourself!"