Page:Pleased to Meet You (1927).pdf/155

 President, having vainly sought the apostate Colonel, was doing his best. Holding the lady gingerly at a distance, so that he could gaze downward unimpeded, Herr Guadeloupe was too busy codrdinating feet to attempt small-talk. Save for his automatic repetition "Excuse, I tell de vorld," or his anguished "Sorry to meet you" when they came solidly against the massy postern of some Illyrian dowager, he performed in anxious silence. The orchestra leader, keeping respectful watch on the chief magistrate's timing, made the mistake of trying to help him by halting the music when he went wrong. The unhappy man dared not raise his eyes from the floor except when he occasionally cast a haggard look in search of his adviser. The latter had been only a brilliant migrant in the crowded ballroom, seen sometimes in the distance floating serenely with Nyla, then disappearing again into the moonlight.

So Frau Quackenbush, aware that a few more such collisions would be fatal, did the steering. The President turned always in the same direc-