"Traitor," whispered a fresh, young voice at his elbow, and he looked up into the winning eyes of Diana.
"Oh! And how do they usually go with you, fair cousin?"
"Oh, yes--cleverly. There's nothing else to anything I do."
"Enough as far as music is concerned," she said impatiently. "Did you ever see a musical virtuoso whom a real man didn't want to kick? And as for you," she added, "you are a traitor. You said you would ask me to dance. Now, if you ask me, I _won't_!"
Still playing, he continued to look up at her smilingly.
"What do you really care about me anyway?" he said. "I wish you'd tell me, Diana."
"What I say, I say.... Did you find Christine Rivett agreeable at dinner?"
"Indeed, it is. I've qualified as an aspirant for her hand and fortune already."
"I don't doubt it," she returned calmly. "That's one reason her father decided to employ us."
She said it unsmiling, and after he had looked up at her once or twice he said: "Of course you are joking."
"Ob, yes; it's one kind of a jest. Meanwhile here comes a young person in black--doubtless mademoiselle.... I'm not going to dance with you; don't compose your features in that smug fashion. You're a traitor, and I won't."
She turned on her heel and advanced leisurely toward Colonel Curmew, who immediately began to twirl his mustache and shoot his cuffs, when, without warning, she sheered off into the receptive arms of Jack Rivett, and was presently drifting across the room in a Viennese waltz.
Others were dancing now; Edgerton went over and asked his hostess--an old New York custom now obsolete--who colored and smiled at him, explaining that she had renounced that art with the advent of rheumatism. So, after a while, he took out her daughter Christine--also an obsolete custom--who soon, however, had enough of him as a dancer, and took him into the conservatory.
The others danced until supper time; midnight found them separating on the stairs. Edgerton and Christine Rivett had rather a prolonged leave-taking, then shook hands cordially in plain view of everybody.
Diana, passing with Silvette, said a careless good night to him. Silvette, retaining her sister's arm, detained him for a moment in conversation; then they went away together, Diana dismissing him with an inattentive nod.