He looked at her and tried to forget everything else. She was pretty and dainty enough to satisfy the most exciting man, and she loved him! To a man who is disappointed and unhappy there is great consolation in the knowledge that to one person at least he counts before anything else in the world.
She looked up at him, and impulsively he took a step towards her; another moment and Micky would have sealed his fate, had not Mrs. Deland pushed open the door and walked into the room.
It had not been any effort for her to forgive Micky for his cavalier treatment of her daughter. For the last week she had been busy telling every one that Marie and Micky had made up their quarrel––“entirely Marie’s fault it was, you know,” and so on.
“You are going to give me half your dances at least,” Micky said, when they reached the Hoopers’. He took the card from Marie’s hand and filled in his own initials recklessly against the numbers.
She laughed tremulously; she was too happy to think of anything but the present; she had got Micky again, and that was all she cared about.
“Good-evening!” said a voice at her side, and, turning, she found Raymond Ashton at her elbow.
Marie did not care particularly for Ashton. She greeted him rather coldly.
“So you’re back in town,” she said. “And your wife?”
“Not here to-night,” he answered. “She has a bad cold, so I persuaded her to stay at home. May I have a dance?”