Page:Elizabeth Jordan--Tales of the city room.djvu/157

 lightly. "Your friend—he is safe. He has thrown me over. He will have nothing to do with me. It is not flattering, but it is the truth. He is already in his mountains—or on the way there," added Dolorita, vaguely.

"You mean—?" queried Miss Herrick, blankly.

"Just what I say," repeated the other woman. "He was disappointed in me. He told me so—at the supper, with all the guests around. It was rather gay," confessed the dancer, innocently, "and he was not pleased. He pushed back his chair, and—what do you call it? preached us a sermon, like a minister in a pulpit. It was funny. I think we were frightened, for a moment. Then he rushed away without his hat, and we laughed and finished our supper."

"He 'll be at your feet to beg your pardon in another hour, perhaps," suggested Ruth Herrick, doubtfully.

The pupils of Dolorita's eyes contracted. Her whole mobile face took on a film of hardness.

"Not after what he said. He said very ugly things. He seemed to have been