A look into the stupefied face above him showed that his bold guess had been true. Intoxicated by success, he ventured another toss.
"If you say the word, I come pretty near repeating your answer."
Behind the astonishment, then the consternation of the girl's face, a harder something flashed. She was not accustomed to have the lead so rudely taken. This young person must be disposed of on the instant. His impudence would have given points to Jonah's gourd. She now rose to her feet, held her chin unnecessarily high, and, with the air of a young Lady Macbeth, drawled out,—"I will spare you the trouble, Mr. T. Caraway Dodge. Much as I dislike to be rude, the words I said were these—" She paused. Dodge rose too. The brown eyes and the hazel were nearly on a level. He was laughing. "Well?" he reminded at length.
His unconsciousness of offence gave the last flare to her indignation.
"I said to those present, 'The sending of so costly a bouquet by Mr. Dodge is a little—er—pushing, and the sender must be told so; but since, by accident,—the flowers just happen to suit my gown—'"
"Nonsense!" laughed the rash Dodge, "you never talked that way in your life, unless you deliberately made it up. That's your stunt now, of course. Any one could see it. What is more likely, you said—what I planned for you to say was,—'Oh, here are the flowers I have been waiting for! I think I'll have to marry the person who sent me these!—There's the music of the first waltz! It's a peach! Come,—you haven't promised it, have you? Everybody is waiting for the hostess to begin. Let us start the ball rolling!"
In sheer incapacity to resist, a weakness wrought of a benumbing conflict of anger, mirth, and amazement, Gwendolen leaned to him,—and her débutante ball opened with her, joyous, whirling in the arms of Mr. T. Caraway Dodge.
After this initial favor, he was rigidly, even scornfully, ignored; but little cared Dodge for that. He had had his day. The impetus given could carry him smiling on through hours of cold neglect. He was determined to be the gayest of that circling round of joy, and succeeded. Stout matrons, lean old maids, Chinese, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Peruvian, Pole,—just so it wore skirts and could move its feet, all were food for his new mill of ecstasy.
Gwendolen danced oftenest with Pierre. He was literally a perfect dancer, and to-night he said that the champagne all went to his heels. Yuki, in her decorous Japanese draperies, wound about by stiff brocades, did not attempt foreign dancing.
Haganè and the older members of the suite left early. Hirai, the secretary, remained, evidently charmed by the long eyes of his young countrywoman. During the time she was not talking to him or Pierre, Yuki remained near Mrs. Todd, delighting the soberer friends who came to speak with them by her beauty and intelligence. In the pleasure of seeing this enjoyment of her Oriental protégé, Mrs. Todd forgot to scold about the affair of the Russian minister, and made only one remark about Yuki's undignified and un-American "kow-tow" to the prince.