Page:Maud Howe - A Newport Aquarelle.djvu/16

 found no seats, these last having no other resource than to walk up and down between the two rows of well-dressed men and women. The most popular of the ladies held little courts of their own at different points of the corridor, and were surrounded by circles of men, of whom they spoke to their husbands as friends, to their lady acquaintances as beaux.

The lady who had promised to stop Miss Carleton as she passed by, had succeeded in securing for herself a seat close to the steps which led down from the corridor to the tennis courts,—a veritable coigne of vantage, from whence every eligible man who passed up or down the steps could be arrested by a smile or a word. She had hurried her toilet in order to be early on the ground and make sure of the coveted spot. It was not to be wondered at that she was not in haste to surrender it, in order to oblige Mr. Cuthbert Larkington by an introduction to Gladys Carleton. She did not intend to surrender