“Dr. Kemp!” she exclaimed in pouting reproach, “do I appear as promiscuous as that? You may call me a ‘blue book,’ but spare my snobbery the opprobrious epithet of ‘directory.’ There goes the fascinating young Mrs. Shurly with Purcell Burroughs in her toils. Did you catch the fine oratory of the glance she threw us? It said, ‘Dorothy Gwynne, how dare you appropriate Dr. Kemp for ten long minutes? Hand him over; pass him around. I want him; you are only boring him, though you seem to be amusing yourself.”
Kemp’s grave lips twitched at the corners; he was without doubt amused.
“Aren’t you improvising?” he asked. A man need only offer an occasional bumper of a remark to keep the conversation from flagging, when his companion is a woman.
“No; you evidently do not know what a feminine sneer is in words. Ah, here comes the Queen of Sheba.” She broke off with a pleased smile as Ruth Levice approached on the arm of her cousin, Louis Arnold.
Singly, each would have attracted attention anywhere; together they were doubly striking-looking. Arnold, tall and slight, carrying his head high, fair of complexion as a peachy-cheeked girl, was a peculiarly distinguished-looking man. The delicate pince-nez he wore emphasized slightly the elusive air of supercilious courtliness he always conveyed. Now, as he spoke to Ruth, who, although a tall girl, was some inches shorter than he, he maintained a strict perpendicular from the crown of his head to his heels, only looking down with his eyes. Short women resented this trick of his, protesting that it made them stand on tiptoe to speak to him.
There was something almost Oriental about Ruth, with her creamy, colorless face, like a magnolia blossom; her dusky hair was loosely rolled from her forehead and temples; her eyes were soft and brown beneath delicately pencilled brows, and matched the pure oval of her face. But the languorous air of Southern skies was wholly wanting in the sweet sympathy of her glance, and in a certain alertness about the poise of her head.
Arnold stopped perforce at Miss Gwynne’s slight signal.
“Where are you hastening?” she asked as they turned to greet her. “One would think you saw your Nemesis before you, so oblivious were you to the beauties scattered about.”
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