As he entered the room, despite the disenchanting experiences of the past week, it was with a certain pretty agitation that Annie rose to introduce him, and she looked blank enough when, without waiting for her offices, he bowed with a foppish air to Lou and murmured a salutation.
“What, are you acquainted already?” exclaimed Annie.
“I certainly did not know that we were,” said Lou coldly, not thinking it possible that this flashily dressed youth, with such an enormous watch-chain and insufferable manners, could be Annie's hero.
“Ah, very likely not,” he replied carelessly, adding with an explanatory smile that took in all the group: “Ladies' faces are so much alike that, 'pon my soul, unless there is something distinguished about them, I don't know whether I know them or not. I depend on them to tell me; fortunately they never forget gentlemen.”
Miss Roberts's face elongated into a freezing stare. Annie stood there in a sort of stupor till Hunt said briskly:--
“Well, Annie, are you going to introduce this lady to me?”
As she almost inaudibly pronounced their names, he effusively extended his hand, which was not taken, and exclaimed:--
“Lou Roberts! is it possible? Excuse me if I call you Lou. Annie talks of you so much that I feel quite familiar.”
“Do you know, Miss Roberts,” he continued, seating himself close beside her, “I 'm quite prepared to like you?”
“Indeed!” was all that young lady could manage to articulate.
“Yes,” continued he, with the manner of one giving a flattering reassurance, “Annie has told me so much in your favor that, if half is true, we shall get on together excellently. Such girl friendships as yours and hers are so charming.”
Miss Roberts glanced at Annie, and seeing that her face glowed with embarrassment, smothered her indignation, and replied with a colorless “Yes.”
“The only drawback,” continued Hunt, who manifestly thought he was making himself very agreeable, “is that such bosom friends always tell each other all their affairs, which of course involve the affairs of all their friends also. Now I suppose,” he added, with a knowing grin and something like a wink, “that what you don't know about me is n't worth knowing.”
“You ought to know, certainly,” said Miss Roberts.