Page:Glimpses of the Moon (Wharton 1922).djvu/125

Rh to the old game! It was stupid of her not to have guessed it at once.

"Oh, the Hickses—Nick adores them, you know. He's going to marry Coral next," she laughed out, flashing the joke around the table with all her practiced flippancy.

"Lord!" grasped Gillow, inarticulate: while the Prince displayed the unsurprised smile which Susy accused him of practicing every morning with his Mueller exercises.

Suddenly Susy felt Strefford's eyes upon her.

"What's the matter with me? Too much rouge?" she asked, passing her arm in his as they left the table.

"No: too little. Look at yourself," he answered in a low tone.

"Oh, in these cadaverous old looking-glasses-everybody looks fished up from the canal!"

She jerked away from him to spin down the long floor of the sala, hands on hips, whistling a rag-time tune. The Prince and young Breckenridge caught her up, and she spun back with the latter, while Gillow—it was believed to be his sole accomplishment—snapped his fingers in simulation of bones, and shuffled after the couple on stamping feet.

Susy sank down on a sofa near the window, fanning herself with a floating scarf, and the men foraged for cigarettes, and rang for the gondoliers, who came in with trays of cooling drinks.

"Well, what next—this ain't all, is it?" Gillow