In Washington, my rank had never entitled me
to a seat at her side at dinner; and many was the time I had chaffed
Courtney, or some other unfortunate, who had been so stranded beside
Her Ponderousness. To-night, however, my turn was come, and Courtney
was getting his revenge.
My only solace were the occasional smiles that Dehra gave me--smiles
that Courtney noted instantly and, I fancied, understood; and that
Lotzen intercepted; but what he thought I did not know and did not
care. Who ever cares what his defeated rival thinks!
We had been there for, possibly, half an hour when, happening to glance
outward, I saw Madeline Spencer and an elderly woman, and the man who
had been in the box with her, coming slowly down the Garden. It
chanced that a table near us had just been vacated and they were shown
to it by the head-waiter, whose excessive obsequiousness proved the
size of his tip.
Mrs. Spencer gave our party a single quick glance, as she drew off her
gloves, and then fell to conversing with her companions.
All this I had noted out of the corner of my eye, as it were. I had
not the least doubt she had recognized me at the Opera, and I did not
intend to give her a chance to speak to me--which I knew she would try
to do, the Pittsburgh experience notwithstanding, if she thought it
might further her present plans or pleasures.
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