"Afraid Fanny and Harry wouldn't like it...."
Was one unfair in reading disappointment where Lynn wished solicitude
only to be read?
"How about another little drink?" Lucinda shook her head decidedly.
"Well, then: what say we dance?"
She surveyed the crowded floor dubiously. "It's an awful crush, I'm
afraid...." Nevertheless she got up and threaded the jostling tables
with Lynn at her heels: anything for respite from the racket the
Lontaines and their crew were kicking up.
Odd, how those two, so quiet and well-behaved when she had first met
them in New York, had let go in this demoralizing atmosphere of what
Fanny had rechristened the loose and windy West. Odd, but in a way quite
British. The Anglo-Saxon temperament inclines to lose its head once the
shackles of home-grown public opinion are stricken off. Long ago a wise
man pointed out that there wouldn't be any night life in Paris worth
mentioning if it weren't for strict enforcement of the early closing law
in London....
It was an awful crush. Few better dancers than Lynn Summerlad ever trod
a ball-room floor, but even he was put to it to steer a safe course in
that welter. It was, after all, not much of an improvement on sitting
still and trying to appear unaware of Bellamy and that weird Marquis
creature. Lucinda felt sure, now, she had not been mistaken about the
girl, but concluded to ask Lynn anyway; and her lips were parting with
this intention when she heard a hiss of breath indrawn and looked up to
see Lynn's face disfigured by a spasm of pain. In the same instant he
stopped short, in the next he groaned between set teeth.
"Have to get out of this, I'm afraid," he grunted. "My foot--somebody
with a hoof like a sledge-hammer landed on it just now. That wouldn't
matter, only the confounded thing got caught between a couple of logs
while we were doing that river stuff. The swelling went down several
days ago, and to tell the truth I'd forgotten about it.... But this
reminds me plenty!"
He had an affecting limp on the way back to their table, where he
delayed long enough to tell his story and receive commiserations, then
announced that, though desolated to leave such a promising young party,
he would have to get home and out of his shoes before he could hope to
know another instant's ease. If the Lontaines wouldn't mind seeing that
Lucinda got back to the Hollywood all right....
The Lontaines were ready enough to undertake that responsibility, but
Lucinda wouldn't hear of staying on. Lynn's chauffeur could as well as
not take her to the Hollywood after dropping Lynn in Beverly Hills....
She was glad enough of the excuse, of course, but she did resent, what
she couldn't help covertly looking for on the way out, the sardonic
glint in Bel's eyes.
Really, Bel's effrontery seemed to know no limit. To protest at noon
that "casual women" meant nothing to him any more, and at midnight to
make public parade of his interest in a demi-rep! On top of that, to
give his wife that odious look of understanding when she passed him
with Summerlad, a look implying privity to some indecorous secret
involving them!
Simmering indignation rendered her demeanour unsympathetic, perhaps,
while Lynn was being made as comfortable as might be in his car, with
the shoe removed from his poor hurt foot and the latter extended on one
of the forward seats. And for some minutes after they had got under way
she maintained, in the face of inquisitive sidelong glances, a silence
which Lynn seemed loath to break. But in time it began to wear upon his
nerves.
"Cross, sweetheart?" he enquired gently. "I'm sorry you let me drag you
away----"
"It isn't that," Lucinda replied, almost brusquely. "I wasn't enjoying
myself, anyway--wanted to leave almost as soon as we arrived."
"Then what is it?"