Page:Leon Wilson - Ruggles of Red Gap.djvu/292

278 with others. Some late arrivals bustled in and were immediately awed to the same electric silence of waiting. Belknap-Jackson placed the sherry decanter where the vodka bottle had been and the vodka bottle where the sherry decanter had been. "The effect is better," he remarked, and went to stand where he could view the driveway. The moments passed.

At such crises, which I need not say have been plentiful in my life, I have always known that I possessed an immense reserve of coolness. Seldom have I ever been so much as slightly flustered. Now I was calmness itself, and the knowledge brought me no little satisfaction as I noted the rather painful distraction of our host. The moments passed—long, heavy, silent moments. Our host ascended trippingly to an upper floor whence he could see farther down the drive. The guests held themselves in smiling readiness. Our host descended and again took up his post at a lower window.

The moments passed—stilled, leaden moments. The silence had become intolerable. Our host jiggled on his feet. Some of the quicker-minded guests made a pretence of little conversational flurries: "That second movement—oh, exquisitely rendered! No one has ever read Chopin so divinely.  How his family must idolize him!  They say  That exquisite concerto!  Hasn't he the most stunning hair.  Those staccato passages left me actually limp—I'm starting Myrtle in Tuesday to take of Professor Gluckstein. She wants to take stenography, but I tell her  Did you think the preludes were just the tiniest bit idealized  I always say if one