"Pooh! she'll forget my name tomorrow," said Beecher, who, however, believed nothing of the sort. "Come on."
Mrs. Kildair was standing by the great Italian fireplace, her glance playing incessantly through the crowd, nodding from time to time, but without hearing the remarks of two or three older men who surrounded her. So different was the magnetic animation of her whole attitude from the ordinary feline languor of her pose, that Beecher noticed it at once, an impression heightened by the flash of the eyes and the almost electric warmth of her hand as she greeted him. Mrs. Kildair, who had followed his entrance with Mrs. Craig Fontaine and Emma Fornez and moreover was particularly pleased at his presenting young Gunther, was unusually gracious.
Gunther, with his direct, almost obtrusive stare, studied her with unusual curiosity, conversed a little, and departed, after receiving a cordial invitation from her to call.
"What is the matter with you, Rita?" said Beecher immediately.
"Matter—how do you mean?"
"I have never seen you so excited."
"Really, do I seem so?" she said, waving to some one on the floor.
"Extraordinarily so."
"I am generally—dormant," she said, laughing. "Yes, I am excited tonight."
"You are on the track of the ring—you have found it," he said instantly, with a pang of disappointment.