She was looking down at her plate demurely while
Reggie Van Voort talked straight into her pink ear, his eyes gleaming
with the zest of invasion. "I say, Miss Drake, you won't mind talking
to me a while after dinner, will you?" went on Odwell, something like
relief in his voice.
After dinner she was obliged to set him straight in a little
matter. They were sitting on the terrace and he had thrown away his
half-smoked cigarette, an act in itself significant. She had been
listening patiently, from sheer habit and indifference, to what he was
saying, but at last she revolted.
"Don't! You shall not say such things to me. I am not your kind, I
fancy, Mr. Odwell," she said. "I don't know why you should tell me of
your chorus-girl friends--of your suppers and all that. I don't care
to hear of them and I don't intend that you shall use me as a subject
of illustration. I am going upstairs."
"Oh, come now, that's rather rough, just as we were getting on so
well. All the fellows do the same--"
"I know. You need not tell me. And you all have wives at home, too,"
with intense scorn.
"Now, that's where you wrong us. They're _not_ at home, you know.
That's just it."
"Never mind, Mr. Odwell; I'm going in." She left him and entered the
house. For a minute or two he looked after her in wonder, and then,
softly whistling, made his way over to where De Peyton, through some
oversight, was talking to his own wife. De Peyton unceremoniously
announced that he was going upstairs to write a letter.
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