We were a merry party.  Dehra was positively bewitching and Radnor was simply fascinated.  He could scarcely take his eyes from her, even when addressed by Lotzen; which was very little, for the Duke devoted himself very assiduously to Lady Helen.  So I was remitted to Lady Radnor, who was about the most tiresomely uninteresting mortal it had been my misfortune to know—­a funeral service was an extravaganza in comparison to her talk.  In Washington, my rank had never entitled me to a seat at her side at dinner; and many was the time I had chaffed Courtney, or some other unfortunate, who had been so stranded beside Her Ponderousness.  To-night, however, my turn was come, and Courtney was getting his revenge.

My only solace were the occasional smiles that Dehra gave me—­smiles that Courtney noted instantly and, I fancied, understood; and that Lotzen intercepted; but what he thought I did not know and did not care.  Who ever cares what his defeated rival thinks!

We had been there for, possibly, half an hour when, happening to glance outward, I saw Madeline Spencer and an elderly woman, and the man who had been in the box with her, coming slowly down the Garden.  It chanced that a table near us had just been vacated and they were shown to it by the head-waiter, whose excessive obsequiousness proved the size of his tip.

Mrs. Spencer gave our party a single quick glance, as she drew off her gloves, and then fell to conversing with her companions.

All this I had noted out of the corner of my eye, as it were.  I had not the least doubt she had recognized me at the Opera, and I did not intend to give her a chance to speak to me—­which I knew she would try to do, the Pittsburgh experience notwithstanding, if she thought it might further her present plans or pleasures.

Lotzen, however, had been drinking rather freely and was not so chary with his glances.  Indeed, he stared so frankly that Lady Helen did not hesitate to prod him about it.

“I would take her to be an American,” I heard him say.

“Without a doubt,” Lady Helen answered.

Inwardly, I consigned the Spencer woman to perdition.  They would be interrogating me about her, next; and I did not know just how to answer.  I would have to admit knowing her; that would only whet their curiosity and bring further questions.  To tell the whole story was absurd—­and, yet, only a little of it would leave a rather unpleasant inference against me.  At any rate, on Dehra’s account, I did not want the matter discussed.

I could feel Lotzen’s glance, and I knew he was waiting only for a break in Lady Radnor’s discourse.  I gave him as much of my back as possible, and encouraged her to proceed.  She was on the Tenement House problem; but I had no idea what she was advocating, in particular.  I did not care.  All I wanted was talk—­talk—­talk.  And, whenever she showed signs of slowing up, I flung in a word and spurred her on again.