“And afterwards?”
“Oh, afterwards, I just went on playing. It didn’t seem worth while not to, you know,” said the gambler, with his tired smile.
X
WAS THAT THE LANDMARK?
As a hostess Mrs. Merton possessed a penetrating amiability which could persuade the lioness to lie down with the lamb, and could temporarily repair rifts in the social lute so well that it would run up and down the social scale without any disconcerting discords. When she brought up her women guests after dinner, they gathered round the fire and gossiped like school-girls. Sitting next the mantel-piece with her shoes on the tiled hearth, shielding her face with a peacock-feather fan, Bernard’s pretty partner was holding forth concerning flirtation. She had thin little features and a retroussé nose, and she lifted and moved her head like a bird; her thick, curly fair hair was cut short; her eyes were gray and clear, and not a little imperious. In dress she was so demure and simple that Dolly set her down as a great heiress, not discerning that her demure simplicity was of the kind that comes from Paris.
“No. I detest flirtation,” she was saying. “It is an appeal to the vulgarity of our natures. It may be fit for men, but not for women.”
“My dear girl,” drawled her vis-à-vis, a plain but well-dressed young matron with fine dark eyes: “you never set eyes on Hugh Meryon before to-day, and you sat in the brambles with him the whole afternoon!”
“She was converting him,” said Ella Merton. “She belongs to the Anti-Gambling League, don’t you, Angela? and she had to gambol around him to lure him away.”
“Always think that people are like consols, they lose interest when they’re converted,” murmured the dark-eyed matron, whom Dolly recognized as the lady in the black frills.
“Maud, don’t be flippant,” said Angela, not at all disconcerted. “If you know Mr. Meryon, you must know that he absolutely can’t flirt. That’s why I like him.”
“I like flirting,” said Maud; “it’s so desperately interesting. Talking sense is such a desperate bore, you know. It’s all very well for you, my dear girl; men’ll listen to an angel that’s paid a visit to Worth. But with my sallow complexion it’s simply suicidal.”