Keith warmed to this free and easy atmosphere. He was friendly and sympathetic with the lively crowd. But in vain he tried for a point of contact. All this badinage depended on a previous knowledge and intimacy, and that, of course, he lacked. Mrs. Morrell, sitting beside him very straight and commanding, delivered her general remarks in a high, clear voice, turning her attention impartially now to one part of the noisy table, now to another.
Suddenly she abandoned the company to its own devices, and leaning her left elbow on the table, she turned squarely to Keith, enveloping him with a magnetic all-for-you look.
"Do you know," she said abruptly, "something tells me you are musical."
"Why, I am, a little," admitted Keith, surprised. "But how could you tell?"
"La, now, I was sure you had a voice the first time I heard you speak. I adore music, and I can always tell."
"I? No, unfortunately. I have no more voice than a crow. I strum a bit, but even that has been a good deal neglected lately. There's no temptation to keep up one's music here. I don't know a single soul in all this city who cares a snap of their finger for it."
"We'll have to have some music together," suggested Keith.
"I'd adore it. Isn't it lucky we're neighbours? I've been so interested"--she said it as though she had almost intended to say "amused"--"in watching you this past week. You are the most domestic man I know. I never saw a man work so singlemindedly at his house and home. Domesticity is a rare outworn virtue here, I assure you. It is really quite touching to see a man so devoted these days."
She said these things idly, a little disjointedly, looking at him steadily all the while. Her manner was detached, and yet somehow it impelled him strongly to protest that he was really not a bit domestic.
"Have you met any of the people of the place?" she shifted suddenly,
"Well--I really haven't had much chance yet--a few of the men."
"Well--you'll find things pretty mixed. Don't expect much; one has to take things pretty much as one finds them."
To this simple speech was appended one gesture only--a slight raising of the eyebrows. Yet the effect was to sweep Keith into the intimacy of an inner circle, to suggest that she, too, found society mixed, and to imply--very remotely--that at least certain members of the present company itself were not quite what he--or she--would choose in another environment. In unconscious response to this unspoken thought, Keith glanced about the table. There was a good deal of drinking going on; and the fun was becoming even more obvious and noisy. Mrs. Morrell occasionally sipped at her champagne. She emitted a slight but rather disturbing perfume.