"This will never do!" he exclaimed. "Why aren't you chasing the hours with flying feet? Why aren't you letting joy be unconfined and all that sort of thing? Chartreuse? I can hardly believe it! Of course, if you insist.... Sinks, go and dance!"
"I've been cut," Sinclair returned contentedly.
"Faint heart never won fair lady. You said Chartreuse, didn't you? I like to make quite sure. You been cut too, George?"
"We've all been cut," I said.
Loring looked round and pointed an accusing finger at an immaculate, pale, fair-haired youth with sensational waistcoat buttons and a white gardenia. I knew him by sight, as the illustrated papers were always publishing his photographs in country-house groups, and the reviews alternated between describing his novels as "impossibly brilliant" and "brilliantly impossible."
"No woman born of woman has ever cut Valentine Arden," he said.
"One had three partners," Arden replied with dreamy detachment. "One could not do justice to them all. 'Solomon in all his wisdom ...' and they had hot red faces. He retired into himself and sat lost in contemplation of a smoke-ring till it wavered and burst.
"You're a contemptible lot," said Loring with scorn. "No more idea of duty ... oh, my Lord! here's Raney! Go and dance, you little beast!"
"I've been cut," O'Rane protested with an air of originality. "If you're so keen on duty...." He pointed to the tray of liqueur glasses. "And it's so fattening. Go and work it off, Jim."
Loring shook his head.