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Margaret's head was on his shoulder. She raised it. Her eyes had opened. She looked at him, at the arms that were about her. A shudder shook her. Verelst stretched a hand, Ogston another. With them, but otherwise without effort, she stood up. Cantillon exclaimed at her. "Right as rain again! I say, Miss Austen, you did give us a start!"
Abandoning perplexity, he went on and up. "Here you are! Bright and late as usual!" In her fluted voice, with her agreeable smile, Mrs. Austen greeted him. The lady was attired in a manner that left her glitteringly and splendidly bare. With her, in the cluttered drawing-room, were Margaret, Kate Schermerhorn, Poppet Bleecker, Verelst, Cantillon and Ogston. "Will you take my daughter out?" Mrs.
All were hurriedly getting up. Paliser turned to Margaret. She had gone. Verelst now was between him and her chair. He was bending over. Bending also was Mrs. Austen. On the other side were Cantillon, Ogston and Miss Bleecker. Then, as the surprise of it lifted Paliser, he saw that they were lifting her. "Brandy!" said Verelst. "Tell the man." "Permit me!"
"You're quite a belle, aren't you?" "See here, Ogston," Lennox put in, "let me have it." Ogston, fumbling in his white waistcoat, extracted the ticket and handed it over. "By the way, Lennox, do you mind my doing a little touting for Cantillon? He's with Dunwoodie. Give him your law business some of it, anyhow."
In a corner an old man glared with envious venom at the liquors of which he had consumed too many and of which, at the price of his eyesight, he could consume no more. Jones waved at Lennox. "I have been telling these chaps that before they are much older they will be in khaki." "Houp!" cried Cantillon.
The car veered and stopped at a restaurant that had formerly resided in Fourteenth Street, but which had moved, as the heart of Manhattan moved, and was then thinking of moving again. In the entrance were Cantillon and Ogston, agreeable young men, who stood aside for Cassy, raised their hats at Paliser, nudging each other with unfathomable good-fellowship. "A peach!" "No, a pair!"
The object of the dinner was achieved and achievement, however satisfactory, is fatiguing. "You too!" she successively exclaimed at Ogston and Cantillon. "And you also!" she exclaimed at Paliser, to whom, dropping her voice, she added: "If possible, remember me to him." As they went, Verelst surveyed her. He stood against the mantel, his back to the empty grate. Turning she saw him.
Mrs. Austen with her tireless smile enquired of Paliser, who, after speaking to the girls, had said something to Cantillon. "Somersaults being a specialty of his, I was telling him that now is the time for a triple one." Paliser turned to Margaret. She had said nothing. She was very pale. Mute, white, blonde, she was a vision. At table, Verelst, addressing him, asked: "How is your father?"
The great room was filled with members, eating, drinking, laughing, talking talking mainly of nothing whatever. He motioned. "Isn't that Cantillon over there with of all people! Dunwoodie?" Lennox looked and nodded. "Cantillon is in Dunwoodie's office. He asked me to give him my law business." Indifferently, with the air of one considering the improbable, Lennox added: "Some day I may.
So also did Cantillon and Ogston. But Paliser, who had nothing to say to them, accompanied Mrs. Austen. "It never happened to her before," she told him. "Where shall you sit? Here, by me?" In speaking she made room on the sofa and with amiable suspicion eyed him. "You hadn't said anything to her, had you?" Paliser shook his handsome head. "I wanted to." Pleasantly she invited it. "Yes?"
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