"Well, now, I’m goin’ to tell some folks I know what you say. Ain’t your wife just as light as a fairy, and don’t your brother look handsome to-night? No, sir, there ain’t any folks here as good-lookin’ as ours."
When the waltz was finished, Gorham Page and Hilda approached Clover and told her that Aunt Love was without. She excused herself from her partner to go with them, and soon afterward Gorham walked home with her.
"Thank you so much for coming," he said, when he was bidding her good-night.
"I am sure we have all to thank you," she answered. "Isn’t it hard to be reconciled to letting your brother and Hilda go? We have been such a pleasant party."
"Yes," returned Page, looking down at her as she stood in her white wrap, an unconsciously adoring expression in his eyes; "this summer is an experience that one could wish would never end. Going away," he smiled vaguely, "leaving you, having these weeks come to an end, is almost as difficult to grasp in prospect as the thought of death."
Clover laughed softly. "We won’t borrow trouble," she said. "Good-night."
"Do you think Jack enjoyed himself?" asked Clover, when her sister crossed the hall to her room that night for the usual last word before retiring.
"I suppose he did. How anxious you are about Jack all the time! You make an absolute fetish of him. It used to mislead me."
"Did it?" Clover smiled, and turned back to her dressing-table.
"Yes, indeed, and no wonder. It is a good thing, however, that I was mistaken, else I’m sure there would have been coffee and pistols ordered for two. I want your opinion, Clover, on a delicate question. Supposing a man of some strength of character spends a whole evening at a dance following about after a woman, smiling pensively at her face, or the back of her head, or her shoulder, or whatever of her he can get to smile at, and finding spots of vantage from which he can behold her dance when he is not dancing with her himself. Supposing he flies about to bring her glasses of water, and wraps, and fans, and performs all the other offices which are usually the privilege of her partners, driving said partners to the last pitch of exasperation. What, I ask you, is the matter with that man?"