Within the house, the rugs were up in the drawing-room, the library, the dining-room, and the wide hall; there sounded, presently, the tinkling music of the phonograph, and there was the unceasing movement of white-clad figures which seemed to float in a golden haze.
Becky danced a great deal, with Randy, with the younger boarders, and with the genial gentleman. She laughed with an air of unaffected gayety. And she felt that her heart stopped beating, when at last she looked up and saw Dalton standing in the door.
She at once went towards him, and gave him her hand. "I wonder if you know everybody?"
Her clear eyes met his without self-consciousness.
He attempted a swagger. "I don't want to know everybody. How do they happen to be here?"
"I asked them. And they are really very nice."
He did not see the niceness. He had thought to find her in the setting which belonged to her beauty. The silent night, the fragrance of the garden, the pale statues among the trees, and himself playing the game with a greater sense of its seriousness than ever before.
Throughout the evening George watched for a chance to see Becky alone. Without conspicuously avoiding him, she had no time for him. He complained constantly. "I want to talk to you. Run away with me, Becky—and let these people go."
"It isn't proper for a hostess to leave her guests."
"Are you trying to—punish me?"