Page:The Breath of Scandal (1922).djvu/50

 He never smoked when Marjorie did; and Gregg, holding a light for her, considered that he had never seen her smoke except before Billy. He doubted whether she really liked it.

"Billy, you're almost as bad about my vices as father," she teased him gently.

"You don't smoke before him any more," Billy returned.

"No; neither does mother. Poor mother, she tried it; and I think it's the one thing she's tried which she hasn't succeeded in doing."

"A pipe is the real smart thing now, Marjorie," Billy suggested, with heavy sarcasm.

Gregg left them at the door of the club and put up his car at the end of a row in the street, where he could get it out quickly. When he entered the club and went to the dancing floor, the orchestra was playing a fox trot; he found Ethel Chaden and danced with her; and the warm liveliness of the ballroom, the lilt to the music and the quick step, the sudden chatter and hand-clapping all about, when the music stopped; the nods and words back and forth with girls and men he knew, and now the music and dance again, shook Gregg out of the doldrums he had dropped into. He danced with Clara Sedgwick, then fox-trotted with Elsie; he got Marjorie away from Bill for a one step, and danced again with Ethel Chaden; and it was not until some time after Mrs. Hale appeared on the floor, and Gregg went over to sit out a dance with her, that he let himself get to thinking once more.

Mrs. Hale frequently gave dances and always attended, at least for a short time, the dances to which she was invited; but she did not much care to dance herself; she seemed to value the music and the liveliness