“Drinkwater and the girl at the end.”
“Oh, her!”
“Lady Vere de Vere.”
“Sonderson’s all right,” said Belle Shaler loudly. “What’s wrong? Couldn’t she see you?”
Tootles, who had placed himself next to Pansy, who looked unusually fragrant, indignantly defended himself amid shouts of laughter. And they had just risen joyously, when the door opened and Drinkwater’s high face and roving eyes appeared.
“Sorry, most sorry. Didn’t get your invitation until just now,” he said, sliding in. He spoke just above a whisper, every fifth word interrupted by a nervous blowing out of the breath through his nose, which he tweaked constantly. “Am I too late?”
“Not at all; you’re welcome, Drinkwater. This is open house to-night,” said King O’Leary, with outstretched hand. “My name’s O’Leary. Come on and meet the bunch.”
The new arrival cast a momentary chill on the group, a new element difficult to assimilate, while several remarked that he came in as the thirteenth—a coincidence which many later recalled. There was something too eager, too effusive in his greeting as he made the rounds. When he came to the baron, the latter barely acknowledged his salute with the slightest of nods, a reception which Drinkwater did not appear to notice in the least. When the introductions were over, he went directly to the side of Pansy, to the evident and rising amazement of Tootles.
However, the tree was waiting, and amid the shock of surprise at the unexpected appearance of presents, neatly done up and addressed to each, they momentarily forgot the unwelcome element. In default of the usual bazaars O’Leary had returned with the spoils of half a dozen pawn-shops. There was an old black-lace fan with carved ivory sticks for Miss Quirley, which so exactly matched her gown that she sat down and cried, quietly confessing, in a burst of confidence, that it replaced one she had been forced to sell a dozen years before. There were brooches and bracelets for the other ladies, not imitations but real silver and gold with genuine stones—which left them enraptured and stupefied. The baron, Drinkwater, and Schneibel received stick-pins, while Tootles and Flick were themselves amazed to receive each a real-gold watch. To escape the torrent of thanks, King O’Leary, blushing and happy, bolted to the piano; the colored orchestra, which had just arrived, struck up, and in a moment the whole company was whirling around the studio, from which the tables had disappeared.
In the midst of the second dance, Madame Probasco, the medium directly below, rushed up in stormy protest, followed by a Mr. Dean, a pale young man who was studying to be a veterinary surgeon. Madame Probasco was a fat, rolly lady, dressed in Gypsy shawls and glittering ear-rings, whose yellow corkscrew curls, streaked with gray, came straggling over her washed-out features so that she looked more like a wild spirit herself than one who was supposed to tame them and call them forth. At the sight of Mrs. Teagan revolving in the arms of Flick, and the landlord himself capering with Belle Shaler in a step absolutely his own, her anger vanished in open-mouthed amazement, and before she could recover, King O’Leary had her about the waist and spinning among the others, while the pale young man who had been craning over her shoulder, fled bashfully.