om him?"

"Dr. Kemp!" she exclaimed in pouting reproach, "do I appear as
promiscuous as that? You may call me a 'blue book,' but spare my
snobbery the opprobrious epithet of 'directory.' There goes the
fascinating young Mrs. Shurly with Purcell Burroughs in her toils. Did
you catch the fine oratory of the glance she threw us? It said, 'Dorothy
Gwynne, how dare you appropriate Dr. Kemp for ten long minutes? Hand him
over; pass him around. I want him; you are only boring him, though you
seem to be amusing yourself."

Kemp's grave lips twitched at the corners; he was without doubt amused.

"Aren't you improvising?" he asked. A man need only offer an occasional
bumper of a remark to keep the conversation from flagging, when his
companion is a woman.

"No; you evidently do not know what a feminine sneer is in words. Ah,
here comes the Queen of Sheba." She broke off with a pleased smile as
Ruth Levice approached on the arm of her cousin, Louis Arnold.

Singly, each would have attracted attention anywhere; together they
were doubly striking-looking. Arnold, tall and slight, carrying his
head high, fair of complexion as a peachy-cheeked girl, was a peculiarly
distinguished-looking man. The delicate pince-nez he wore emphasized
slightly the elusive air of supercilious courtliness he always conveyed.
Now, as he spoke to Ruth, who, although a tall girl, was some inches
shorter than he, he maintained a strict perpendicular from the crown
of his head to his heels, only looking down with his eyes. Short women
resented this trick of his, protesting that it made them stand on tiptoe
to speak to him.

There was something almost Oriental about Ruth, with her creamy,
colorless face, like a magnolia blossom; her dusky hair was loosely
rolled from her forehead and temples; her eyes were soft and brown
beneath delicately pencilled brows, and matched the pure oval of her
face. But the languorous air of Southern skies was wholly wanting in the
sweet sympathy of her glance, and in a certain alertness about the poise
of her head.

Arnold stopped perforce at Miss Gwynne's slight signal.

"Where are you hastening?" she asked as they turned to greet her. "One
would think you saw your Nemesis before you, so oblivious were you to
the beauties scattered about." She looked up pertly at Arnold, after
giving one comprehensive glance over Ruth's toilet.

"We both wished to see the orchids of which one hears," he answered,
with pronounced French