Miss Esme sat at her table wearing an expression of absolute amazement. A slight but growing tendency toward tears emphasized itself in her small and brittle soul. She, of all the guests, remained in the room. Presently the lights were lowered one by one, and presently an elderly gentleman detached himself from a shadowy seat in a window corner and came toward her.
“Don’t you think you’d better be going?” he said, in the kindliest possible way.
Esme started.
“I beg your pardon—n-no, I must wait for my husband.”
“Dear me! I shouldn’t do that, because—I mean—after all—you haven’t one—and he has a wife already.”
“Oh!” she exclaimed, “then that—”
“Quite so. Splendid, isn’t it?”
“But—who are you?”
“Just a friend.”
“Of course,” said Esme, trying to recover a grain of lost prestige. “I hadn’t any idea he was married.”