Masters spoke up from his corner:
“Well, Chester, you ought to be a good dancer if build counts—though I shouldn’t like to have you showing off your accomplishment right here—you might lack the public finish of the Banks style. You big football fellows always have the call on the little men 129 in dancing. It is a matter of bulk and base, I think.” The ferry boat was passing Alcatraz now, and the populace had turned its attention away from Harry Banks and his party. The spoiled child kept straight ahead.
“They make real, ball-room gents,” he said. He turned toward Marion on this; turned as though he could not keep his look away. She lifted her eyebrow again, and he fell into a sulky silence.
The others rushed to the first refuge of tact—personalities. After a moment, Banks joined the talk; and then appeared another aspect of his perverse mood. He took the conversation into his own hands, and he talked of nothing which could by any chance include Bertram Chester, the callow newcomer, the outsider. It was all designed to show, it did show, how intimate they were, how many old things they had in common—never a passage in which Bertram could join by any excuse. Even so did Banks direct it as to draw Kate Waddington into the talk. Bertram sat apart, then, his face showing all his displeasure. His straight brows set themselves in a frown, which he bent sometimes at the group volleying personalities at Harry 130 Banks, and sometimes on the terraced hills of Sausalito.
When they trooped off with the crowd, Kate fell in beside Bertram again. Lagging deliberately, she let a group of picnickers come in between them and the rest of their party. He was still frowning.
“I’d like to soak that man,” he said. “Maybe I will.”
“No you won’t!” said she.
“Won’t I?” he replied.
“Oh, don’t think I haven’t seen it all. He was horrid. You see, we’ve got used to him. You’re meeting him new, and you don’t quite understand him yet.”
“Well, I’m going to spend no sleepless nights trying!”