Page:Good Sports (1919).djvu/200

Rh "Won't you dance with me, Miss Hamilton?" he asked her pleasantly.

"I don't do the new dances," she replied. "I'm sorry."

"Oh, all the better then!" exclaimed Mr. Hornby. "I do 'em only out of politeness myself, and abominably at that. We can talk instead. Let me take your scarf, and let's go out there into the conservatory."

Lucretia was hot all over with embarrassment. She couldn't give up her scarf—her shoes would show. Besides, she, of all people, mustn't go off alone with the lion of the evening.

"Let's sit here," she suggested.

"All right." He drew up a chair intimately as if he meant to stay. "I hope you didn't think me rude at dinner," he said.

"Of course not," she stumbled. She had forgotten how to parry with a man.

"I couldn't help overhearing what you were saying to your dinner partner," he went on, "about your idea of heaven. I've read those same words before somewhere—was it possibly in a novel? Perhaps you can help me." He was watching her closely as he talked. "You didn't finish the quotation, you know. It ended 'and a nice, big, prosperous husband thrown in besides,