“Do you spurn your cocktail, Carlisle?” asked Canning, and when she convivially indicated that she didn’t, he added, man to man:  “How!”

“How,” said Cally.

She touched it to her lips, giving back his smile over the rim of her glass, and feeling gay, indeed.  Two cocktails before one dinner—­well!

“What kind of one is this, Hugo?” she demanded, quite knowingly.

Canning named it.

“Well, then,” said she, “it was a Bronx I had before.”

She did not say before what, and nobody asked.  About them, as they sat in the lively hum, circled servitors without end.  One fellow had brought their bit of caviare; another bore away the traces of it; another had no share of them but to fetch crisp rolls.  Little omnibuses in white suits moved about, gathering up papers or napkins dropped by careless diners; bigger omnibuses in dinner jackets exported trays of dishes which the lordly artists of the serving force were above touching.  Other varlets merely stood about and cooed....

Dinner, having begun with the cocktails, swept on with a rattle of talk.  There was debate about the theatre afterwards.  The girl’s eyes turned often toward the door.

“What do you think of it all, Carlisle?”

“Sweet, Hugo!...  So simple and artless and homey!”

“Exactly,” said Canning; and obtained permission for a cigarette.  “But yet interesting as a vaudeville show, don’t you think?  What so amusing as to see human vanity displaying itself not merely without reserve but with a terrific blowing of horns?”

“Well put, Hugo!” said Mrs. Heth, who held that any kind of generalization constituted good talk.  She added:  “Who are all these people?  How would one place them?”

Canning could indicate a celebrity or two.  He had bowed several times, finding acquaintances, it seemed, even in this glittering farrago.  But his eyes returned to his bride-to-be, from whom he removed his gaze with reluctance to-night.  She wore a dress of yellow crepe-de-chine, with a draped arrangement of blue chiffon, which followed faithfully the long lines of her figure; and a hat of blue straw with an uncurled yellow plume.  It was a beautiful dress, though mamma considered it just a thought too low, even with a handkerchief put in.

And Cally looked back at her lover and thought:  Who so honored and honorable as he?  He’ll only be sorry that I’ve waited so long....

“Only,” she said, aloud, “they do keep the room rather hot for the provinces, where some air is preferred.  More good things to eat, Hugo?  It’s a collation....”

“A poor one, I’m afraid.  You’ve touched nothing.”

He dispatched an army of men to adjust electric fans, turn patent ventilators, and even to do so crude a thing as open a window.

“It is all most delicious, Hugo,” reassured Mrs. Heth.  “I hadn’t noticed that the room was warm, either.”

“My cheeks are burning.  Touch my hand, Hugo.  You see it’s on fire.”