Lambert grinned, the doubt leaving his face as if he had reached a decision.
"I wouldn't bank on father. I'd keep out of his sight."
The advice placed him, for the present, on the safe side. Sylvia's decision remained, and just then the music crashed into a silence, broken by exigent applause. George got up, thrusting his hands in his pockets. The orchestra surrendered to the applause, but was Sylvia dancing now?
Voices drifted in from the hall, one high and obdurate; others better controlled, but persistent in argument. Lambert grimaced. George sneered.
"But that's all right, because he didn't have to work for his living."
"If you don't come a cropper," Lambert said, "you'll get fed up with that sort of thinking. Dolly's young."
Dalrymple was the first in the room, flushed, a trifle uneven in his movements. Goodhue and Wandel followed. Goodhue smiled in a pained, surprised way. Wandel's precise features expressed nothing.
"Why not dancing, Lambert, old Eli?" Dalrymple called jovially. "Haul these gospel sharks off——Waiter! I say, waiter! Something bubbly, dry, and nineteen hundred, if they're doing us that well."
The others didn't protest. They seemed to arrange themselves as a friendly screen between Dalrymple and the elderly men. George didn't care to talk to Dalrymple in that condition—there was too much that Dalrymple had always wanted to say and hadn't. He started for the door, but Wandel caught his arm.
"Wait around, very strong person," he whispered. "Dolly doesn't know it, but he's leaving in a minute."