Hugh was not drinking. The idea of drinking at a dance was offensive to him; he thought it insulting to the girls. The fact that some of the girls were drinking horrified him. He didn't mind their smoking—well, not very much; but drinking? That was going altogether too far.
About midnight he danced again with Hester Sheville, not because he wanted to but because she had insisted. He had been standing gloomily in the doorway watching the bacchanalian scene, listening to the tom-tom of the drums when she came up to him.
"I wanta dance," she said huskily. "I wanta dance with you—you—you blond beast." Seeing no way to decline to dance with the half-drunk girl, he put his arm around her and started off. Hester's tongue was no longer in control, but her feet followed his unerringly. When the music stopped, she whispered, "Take me—ta-take me to th' th' dining-room." Wonderingly, Hugh led her across the hall. He had not been in the dining-room since the dance started, and he was amazed and shocked to find half a dozen couples in the big chairs or on the divans in close embrace. He paused, but Hester led him to an empty chair, shoved him clumsily down into it, and then flopped down on his lap.
"Le's—le's pet," she whispered. "I wanna pet."
Again Hugh smelled the whisky fumes as she put her hot mouth to his and kissed him hungrily. He was angry, angry and humiliated. He tried to get up, to force the girl off of his lap, but she clung tenaciously to him, striving insistently to kiss him on the mouth. Finally Hugh's anger got the better of his manners; he stood up, the girl hanging to his neck, literally tore her arms off of him, took her by the waist and set her down firmly in the chair.
"Sit there," he said softly, viciously; "sit there."
She began to cry, and he walked rapidly out of the dining-room, his cheeks flaming and his eyes flashing; and the embracing couples paid no attention to him at all. He had to pass the door of the library to get his top-coat—he made up his mind to get out of the "goddamned house"—and was walking quickly by the door when one of the patronesses called to him.
"Oh, Mr. Carver. Will you come here a minute?"
"Surely, Mrs. Reynolds." He entered the library and waited before the dowager.
"I left my wrap up-stairs—in Mr. Merrill's room, I think it is. I am getting a little chilly. Won't you get it for me?"