Dolly had a pleasing way of appealing in difficulties, or what seemed such, even to a stranger. "We don’t want ambitious people," she went on; "they are killing, you know--and we certainly don’t want any more like ourselves. As Arthur says," Dolly laughed a little rippling laugh, "’we have social liabilities enough of our own.’"
Arthur De Castro came up just in time to hear his name: "What’s that Arthur says, Dolly?"
"Oh, here you are!" exclaimed his wife. "No matter, dear, what it was."
"It is certain Arthur never said anything of the kind, Mrs. MacBirney," interposed De Castro. "If any one said it, it must have been you, Dolly."
Alice laughed at the two. "No matter who said it," remarked Dolly, dismissing the controversy, "somebody said it. It really sounds more like Robert than anybody else."
"You will be aware very soon, Mrs. MacBirney," continued De Castro, "that the Kimberlys say all manner of absurd things--and they are not always considerate enough to father them on some one else, either."
Alice turned to her hostess with amused interest: "You, of course, are included because you are a Kimberly."
"She is more Kimberly _than_ the Kimberlys," asserted her husband. "I am not a Kimberly." Arthur De Castro in apologizing bowed with so real a deprecation that both women laughed.
"Of course, the young people rebel," persisted Dolly, pursuing her topic, and her dark hair touched with gray somehow gave an authority to her pronouncements, "young people always want a circle enlarged, but a circle _never_ should be. What is it you want, Arthur?"
"Don’t pretend that you leave the men just to listen to me. You want Mrs. MacBirney to dance."
"She is always like that," declared De Castro to Alice, whom he found pleasing because her graciousness seemed to invite its like. "Just such bursts of divination. At times they are overwhelming. I remember how stunned I was when she cried--quite before I could get my breath: ’You want to marry me!’"
"Was she right?" laughed Alice, looking from one to the other.
Alice appealed to Dolly: "What did you do?"
Alice laughingly rose: "Then it would be better to consent at once."
Dolly rose with her. Two of the dancers stopped before them: a tall, slender girl and a ruddy-faced, boyish young man.