Polly smiled at him murderously, and said it was nothing. But Mamise saw her distress, rid herself of the hapless criminal and gave Polly her arm, as she limped through the barrage of hurtling couples. Polly asked Davidge to retrieve her husband from the sloe-eyed ambassadress who was hypnotizing him. She wailed to Mamise:
“I know I’m marked for life. I ought to have a wound-chevron for this. I’ve got to go home and put my ankle in splints. I’ll probably have to wear it in a sling for a month. I’d like to kill the rotten hound that put me out of business. And I had the next dance with that beautiful Rumanian devil! You stay and dance with your ship-builder!”
Mamise could not even think of it, and insisted on bidding good night to the crestfallen Davidge. He offered to ride out home with her, but Polly refused. She wanted to have a good cry in the car.
Davidge bade Mamise good night, reminded her that she was plighted to luncheon at twelve-thirty, and went to the house of the friend he was stopping with, the hotels being booked solid for weeks ahead. He was nursing a stern determination to endure bachelordom no longer.
Mamise was thinking of Davidge tenderly with one of her brains, while another segment condoled with Polly. But most of her wits were engaged in hunting a good excuse for her Baltimore escapade the next afternoon, and in discarding such implausible excuses as occurred to her.
Bitter chill it was, and these owls, for all their feathers, were a-cold. Major Widdicombe was chattering.
“I danced myself into a sweat, and now my undershirt is all icicles. I know I’ll die of pneumonia.”
He shifted his foot, and one of his spurs grazed the ankle of Polly, who was snuggling to him for warmth.
She yowled: “My Gawd! My yankle! You’ll not last long enough for pneumonia if you touch me again.”