Page:The Plutocrat (1927).pdf/52

 but without looking either at it or at his companions. Under his bushy brows, in fact, his gaze quickly fixed itself upon the lady whose appearance Ogle had found so interesting. Her chair was only a few feet from the end of the divan where Macklyn sat and her attention seemed impassively upon the card table; nevertheless, there was something in the sidelong eyes of the poet, as they sought her, that made Ogle suspect this new acquaintance of having talked for her benefit, or at least in the hope that she would hear and be impressed. Macklyn had neither looked at her as he talked, nor by any emphasis of voice shown himself selfishly unconscious that people were playing bridge close by; but the playwright, accustomed to look for the significant in the small, and marking the sidelong eye, could not resist suspicion. The next moment he found himself suspecting his friend Albert Jones of the same thing.

"No wonder you had doubts of your play's success with the crowd, Laurence," Mr. Jones said; and Ogle, familiar with the speaker's ordinary voice, was momentarily surprised to find it improved to sound a more suave and musical note than it did usually. "It's always surprising to find one's obscure ideologisms appreciated. Last year I sent a brace of my