As she approached Mrs. Loftus, who had risen to greet her, she made a little courtesy.
“Sylvia, this is so dear of you. And is your mother very well?”
Again the portière was drawn. A voice announced:
“Miss Price.”
Then there appeared a girl adorably constructed—constructed, too, to be adored. She was slight and very fair. Her mouth resembled the red pulp of some flower of flesh. Her eyes were pools of purple, her hair a turban of gold.
Cannibalistically Loftus looked the delicious apparition up and down. He could have eaten it.
“Mr. Annandale,” the voice announced.
A man, big and blond, with a cavalry mustache and an amiable, aimless air, strolled in.
“Mr. Melanchthon Orr.”
On the heels of Annandale came a cousin of Miss Waldron, a lawyer by trade, a man with a bulldog face that was positively attractive.
There were more how-do-you-do’s, the usual platitudes, interrupted by the opening of doors at the further end of the room, where a butler, a squad of lackeys behind him, disclosed himself in silent announcement of dinner.
After the general move which then ensued and hosts and guests were seated at table, Orr created an immediate diversion by calling to Fanny Price and telling her that shortly she was to marry.
“Yes,” he continued, “and my cousin Sylvia is to marry also, though not so soon; but either Annandale or Royal will never marry at all.”
Bombarded by sudden questions Orr gazed calmly about.
“How do I know? Miranda told me. Miranda the spook. She charged five dollars for the information. If you like to make it up to me, I shall not mind in the least. On the contrary. You see, Mrs. Loftus,” Orr added, turning to his hostess, “I happened, when I went to her, to have your very kind invitation for this evening in my pocket, and, as she wanted something to psychometrize, I gave her that. She held it to her forehead and said, ‘I see you in the house of an elegant lady’—that is you, Mrs. Loftus; yes, there is no doubt about it—‘and there are present two young ladies, one fair, one dark, and two gentlemen; one of the gentlemen will never marry, but the dark young lady will marry in two years and the fair young lady in one. Five dollars. Thank you. Next.’ ”
“Did she say nothing about me except that I am an ‘elegant lady’?” Mrs. Loftus, with a pained laugh and a high voice, inquired.
“Did she say whom I am to marry?” Fanny Price asked, smiling, as she spoke, at Royal.
“But, Melanchthon, surely you do not believe in these things?” said Sylvia gravely.
“Of course he does not,” Loftus exclaimed. “He does not believe in anything. Do you, Orr?”
“I believe in a great many things,” the lawyer replied. “I have precisely three hundred and sixty-five beliefs—one for every day in the year.”
“When the twenty-ninth of February comes around how do you manage then?” said Fanny.
“Yes,” said Annandale, “and how about April first?”
Orr raised a finger. “Jest if you will. But beliefs are a great comfort, or would be among people like you who have none except in fashion, and there is the oddity of it, for belief in this sort of thing is very fashionable now, particularly in London. Yes, indeed, Lady Cloden—you remember her, she was Clara Hastings—well, she went to a spook in Tottenham Court Road, and the spook told her that she would have twins. Immediately she had herself insured. In London, you know, you can be insured against anything. The twins appeared and she got £5,000. Belief in this sort of thing is therefore not merely fashionable but convenient.”
In the ripple of laughter which followed the logic, Orr turned to Mrs. Loftus, Annandale to Miss Waldron, Loftus to Fanny Price.
“You take very kindly to snubbing, don’t you?” said the latter.
“I?”
“Oh, pooh! The other day I saw Mr. Royal Loftus trying to scrape acquaintance with a young person in the street. I never laughed more in my life. She would not look at you. Is that sort of thing amusing? Why don’t you take a girl of your size?”
Loftus looked into Fanny’s eyes. “If you want to know, because you are all so deuced prim.”
“Ah!” and Fanny made a tantalizing little face, showing, as she did so, the point of her tongue. “Now tell me, what makes you think so?”
Across the table Annandale was talking to Sylvia Waldron. His manner was rather earnest, but his utterance had become a trifle thick.
“Oh, Arthur,” the girl at last interrupted him. “Don’t drink any more. You have had five glasses of champagne already.”
Heroically Annandale put his glass down. “Since you wish it, I won’t. But it does not hurt me. I can stand anything.”
“I am afraid it may grow on you.”
Annandale laughed. “Grow on me,” he repeated. “I like that. Why, I am cultivating it.”
Miss Waldron laughed too. “Yes, but you know you must not. I won’t let you.” Then at once, with that tact which was part of her, she changed the subject. “Doesn’t Fanny look well tonight?”
“Very. She is the prettiest girl in New York. But you are the best and the dearest. What is more, you are an angel.”
“To you I want to try to be.”
“Only,” resumed Annandale with a spark of the wit which is born of champagne, “don’t try to be a saint—it is a step backward.”
“Yes, Mrs. Loftus,” Orr was saying, “Miranda is fat, very fat. All mediums are. The fatter they are the more confidence you may have.”
Then there was more small talk. Courses succeeded each other. Sweets came and went. Presently Mrs. Loftus looked circuitously about and slowly arose. When she and the girls had gone and the men were reseated Loftus turned to Orr.
“Did the spook say anything else?”
Orr was selecting a cigar from a cabinet
