Page:Love Insurance - Earl Biggers (1914).djvu/382

Rh Mrs. Bruce's face was livid.

"Madam!" she said through her teeth.

"What is it?" asked the duchess sweetly.

They sat glaring at each other. Then with one accord they turned—to glare at Mr. Jack Paddock.

Mr. Paddock, prince of assurance, was blushing furiously. He stood the combined glare as long as he could—then he looked up into the night.

"How—how close the stars seem," he murmured faintly.

It was noted afterward that Mrs. Bruce maintained a vivid silence during the remainder of that dinner. The duchess, on the contrary, wrung from her purchased lines every possibility they held.

And in that embattled setting Mr. Minot sat, deaf to the delicous [sic] lisp of the débutante at his side. What was woman's greatest privilege? Wasn't it

His forehead grew damp. His knees trembled beneath the table. "Jephson—Thacker, Jephson—Thacker," he said over and over to himself.