"
They were late, and the main floor was being emptied of a small crowd
moving into the dining-room. There the long table of the club dinner
reached from end wall to wall; and, with the scraping of chairs, a
confusion of voices, the places were filled. Lee found himself between
Bemis Fox, a younger girl familiar enough at the dances but whose
presence had only just been recognized, and Mrs. Craddock, in Eastlake
for the winter. Anette was across the board, and her lips formed the
query, "The first dance?"
Lee Randon nodded; he was measurably fond of her; he usually enjoyed a
party at which he found Anette. That she liked him was very evident;
not desperately, but enough to dispose of most restraint; she repeated
to Lee what stories, formal and informal, men told her, and she asked
his advice about situations always intimate and interesting.
The flood of voices, sustained on cocktails, rose and fell, there were
challenges down the length of the table and quickly exchanged
confidences. Bemis, publicly ingenuous, laid a light eager hand on his
arm, and Mrs. Craddock answered a question in a decided manner. The
dinner, Lee saw, was wholly characteristic of the club and its members:
they had all, practically, known each other for years, since childhood;
meeting casually on the street, in the discharge of a common living,
their greetings and conversation were based on mutual long familiarity
and recognized facts; but here, at such dances, they put on, together
with the appropriate dress, a totally other aspect.
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