Page:To-morrow Morning (1927).pdf/161

 Mrs. Prather came to the table, trailing almost overpowering billows of a perfume called La Tendresse, followed by Harry Fisher walking as if he were leaning back on the air, with lifted shoulders and hands dangling as limply as stuffed gloves sewn to the cuffs of swinging empty sleeves. Susette Ricardo jumped up.

"He really makes me feel too ill to stay at the table. Come on and dance, and I'll scream in your ear. The worst of this crazy place is that just as you get to bawling the music stops and you tell the world. Do you know Evelyn Thorne? Sitting with Ralph Levinson? He's mad about her, has been for ages. That's why he fools round with the rest of us, though he despises us. She'll marry him some day—he has millions, and Evelyn's a pussy cat who loves her cream. His father came over in the steerage, but his mother is the only woman in New York who goes in to dinner in gloves. Grand isn't the word for her—going around in a bottle-green motor, with a bottle-green chauffeur and footman with sable collars, leaving cards. You must have heard of him; he's the one who lends such large sums to royalty that it has to go to his London parties—you know! His sister Esther married Lord Waller, and Bernice married the Dugald of Clandugald, or one of those old Scotch ballads. Lord Waller's a very High Churchman—they have a private chapel with their portraits kneeling on each side of the altar—don't you love it? And he plays the organ and