"Bertie, we're dining out—telephone to Dollie. Yes, I said we'd go."
Dollie Gresham's was better than dinner in the restaurant, or brought up by a flat-faced German to their dining-room. Bertie distrusted the tinned soup, the besauced entrées and tasteless meat. He was glad to go out. Esmé had told him nothing; he was hurt and would not show it.
"Ring up the coupé people, Marie. Dollie may be going to a theatre, Bert."
"We must owe them a fortune," was on Bertie's lips, but he stopped. To even ask if a taxi would do might disturb peace.
Dollie wanted them for bridge. Her little dinners surpassed Esmé's now. They were a party of eight, Dollie's bitterly clever tongue keeping away all fears of dullness.
"Cousin May was here to-night, Esmé; she came from Paris to-day also. She saw you there—at the Ritz, having a dinner with blue-eyed Tommy. You heard some pretty tales before that evening was over, Esmé. Let's have them now."
"Am I to undermine the peace of this dinner-table?" Esmé's wit was fairly ready, and she watched with a smile as women flushed and men looked uncomfortable.
"Unsavoury little dustman," said Bertie, sharply.
Esmé had not told him of her dinner. His look at her made the table know it, and gave them something to talk of afterwards.
"Sly Esmé, setting up as such a model too. And Tommy of all men. She was a friend of Jimmie Helmsley's once, too; don't you remember he dropped her for the Chauntsey girl?" people whispered. The teeth of Society loves a bone of scandal to crunch.