Sybarite.
"You're quite ready, Marian?" Shaynon asked; and familiarly slipped a
guiding hand beneath the arm of the girl--with admirable effrontery
ignoring his earlier dismissal.
On the instant, halting, the girl turned to him a full, cold stare.
"I prefer you do not touch me," she said clearly, yet in low tones.
"Oh, come!" he laughed uneasily. "Don't be foolish--"
"Did you hear me, Bayard?"
"You're making a scene--" the man flashed, colouring darkly.
"And," P. Sybarite interjected quietly, "I'll make it worse if you
don't do as Miss Blessington bids you."
With a shrug, Shaynon removed his hand; but with no other
acknowledgment of the little man's existence, pursued indulgently:
"You have your carriage-call check ready, Marian? If you'll let me
have it--"
"Let's understand one another, once and for all time, Bayard," the
girl interrupted. "I don't wish you to take me home. I prefer to go
alone. Is that clear? I don't wish to feel indebted to you for even so
slight a service as this," she added, indicating the slip of
pasteboard in her fingers. "But if Mr. Sybarite will be so kind--"
The little man accepted the card with no discernible sign of
jubilation over Shaynon's discomfiture.
"Thank you," he said mildly; but waited close by her side.
For a moment Shaynon's face reminded him of one of the masks of
crimson lacquer and black that grinned from the walls of Mrs.
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