Bates in
friendly caution.
"Who was that young man you had with you last night?" somebody demanded
of her next day.
"Mr. Brower."
"Who is Mr. Brower, may I ask?"
"A friend of Jane Marshall's." This (save that he had a trusty face) was
all that she knew of Theodore Brower; but she thought it enough.
"And who is Jane Marshall?"
Mrs. Bates gave her questioner one look. "Really, you surprise me," she
observed, and said no word more. Within a week Jane was known throughout
the inquirer's whole set.
Truesdale presently passed Mrs. Bates with a girl on his arm. "I wonder
if that's another one of the tea-pourers?" she asked herself.
It was. Truesdale was escorting Gladys--Gladys McKenna, as her complete
name had finally come to him. He had laughed on first hearing it.
"There's a _chaud-froid_ for you, sure enough!"
Gladys wore a flame-colored gown, and her eyes, curiously fringed with
black above and beneath, had an _outre_ and dishevelled appearance that
lingered in the memory as wax-works do. She kept a strong clutch on his
arm, and galloped alongside him with a persistent _camaraderie_ which
conveyed no hint of cessation.
"Why insist so strongly on a _quadrille d'honneur_?" he was asking her.
"Wasn't a march good enough?"
"We always look for a quadrille at one of the best functions--at home."
"But why draw lines? You don't object if people meet for pleasure on
terms free and equal?"
"Oh, of course if you have no celebrities here--no great figures--"
"Not one--not till you came.
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