Henry, who had no taste for liquor, stood apart, pale, sober, struggling to exhibit a savoir faire that had no existence in his mercurial nature.
'I'll take ginger ale,' he said, in painful self-consciousness.
The Senator, his somewhat jaunty straw hat thrust back a little way off his forehead, took Scotch; drank it neat. It seemed to Henry incongruous when the prim little man tossed the liquor back against his palate with a long-practised flourish.
Back in his seat, between Madame and the girl from Omaha, Henry noted that the Senator had not returned with the others.
Madame turned and looked up the aisle.
The lights were dimmed. The curtain rose.
Cicely was in the row ahead, Herb on one side, Elbow on the other.
Elbow was calm, casual, humorous in a way, whispering phrases that had been found amusing by many girls.
Herb, the only man in what Henry still thought of as a 'full dress suit,' had a way of turning his head and studying Cicely's hair and profile whenever she turned toward Elbow, that stirred Henry to anguish.
'He's rich,' thought Henry, twisting in his chair, clasping and unclasping his hands. 'He's rich. He can do everything for her. And he loves her. He couldn't look that way if he didn't.'