oblivious to the
other two in the manner of people who are glad they have met.

Mrs. Ennis found herself annoyed, her sense of good manners shocked. She
had not suspected that Pollen could be guilty of such clumsiness; she
questioned if matters had reached a point where such an attitude on his
part would be justifiable under any circumstances. At all events, her
doubts concerning his complacency had been answered. It occurred to Mrs.
Ennis that her dinner-party was composed of more inflammable material,
presented more dramatic possibilities, than even she had divined. She
embraced Pollen with her smile.

"What have you been doing with yourself?" she asked.

He lifted long eyebrows and smiled faintly.

"Working very hard," he said.

"Building behemoths for billionaires?"

"Yes."

"And the rest of the time?"

"Rather drearily going about."

She surveyed him with wicked innocence.

"Why don't you fall in love?" she suggested.

His expression remained unmoved. "It is so difficult," he retorted, "to
find the proper subject. A man of my experience frightens the
inexperienced: the experienced frighten me."

"You mean--?"

"That I have reached the age where the innocence no longer possible to
me seems the only thing worth while."

Mrs. Ennis wrinkled her nose daintily. "Nonsense!" she observed, and
helped herself to the dish the servant was holding out to her. "What you
have said," she resumed, "is the last word of the sentimentalist. If I
thought you really meant it, I would know at once that you were very
cold and very cruel and rather silly."

"Thanks!"

"Oh, I'm talking more or less abstractly."

"Well, possibly I am all of those things."

"But you want me to be personal?"

Pollen laughed. "Of course! Doesn't everybody want _you_ to be
personal?"

For an instant Mrs. Ennis looked again at Burnaby and Mary Rochefort,
and a slightly rueful smile stirred in her eyes. It was amusing that
she, who detested large dinners and adored general conversation, should
at the moment be so engrossed in preventing the very type of
conversation she preferred. She returned to Pollen. What a horrid man he
really was! Unangled and amorphous, and underneath, cold! He had a way
of framing the woman to whom he was talking and then stepping back out
of the picture. One felt like a model in all manner of dress and
undress. She laughed softly. "Don't," she begged, "be so mysterious
about yourself! Tell me--" she held him