“What Westmore calls ‘the goods.’”
“And just what are they in her case?” inquired Esmé, persistent as a stinging gnat around a pachyderm.
“I don’t know—a voice, maybe; maybe the dramatic instinct—genius as a dancer—who knows? All that is necessary is to discover it—whatever it may be—and then direct it.”
“Too late, O philanthropic Pasha!” remarked Esmé with a slight sneer. “I’d be very glad to paint her, too, and become good friends with her—so would many an honest man, now that she’s been discovered—but our friend Barres, yonder, isn’t likely to encourage either you or me. So”—he shrugged, but his languid gaze remained on Dulcie—“so you and I had better kiss all hope good-bye and toddle home.”
Westmore and Thessalie still danced together; Mrs. Helmund and Damaris were trying new steps in new dances, much interested, indulging in much merriment. Barres watched them casually, as he conversed with Dulcie, who, deep in an armchair, never took her eyes from his smiling face.
“Now, Sweetness,” he was saying, “it’s early yet, I know, but your party ought to end, because you are coming to sit for me in the morning, and you and I ought to get plenty of sleep. If we don’t, I shall have an unsteady hand, and you a pair of sleepy eyes. Come on, ducky!” He glanced across at the clock:
“It’s very early yet, I know,” he repeated, “but you 152 and I have had rather a long day of it. And it’s been a very happy one, hasn’t it, Dulcie?”
As she smiled, the youthful soul of her itself seemed to be gazing up at him out of her enraptured eyes.
“Fine!” he said, with deepest satisfaction. “Now, you’ll put your hand on my arm and we’ll go around and say good-night to everybody, and then I’ll take you down stairs.”