sn't what you said. There wasn't anything so dead wrong in that.
You could talk about such creatures all you wanted, I suppose, and
still not commit anything that wasn't right according to Hoyle. It was
the way you handed it out that got my goat so completely!" He gurgled
reminiscently. "But listen here, Miss Arethusa, you do just what I'm
telling you and you let the natural history alone for the rest of this
party, no matter what your book said about it. You can the high-brow
stuff from now on, and you'll get along better."

She could plainly tell that every word of this was meant as advice
between friends. It was impossible to construe Mr. Watts' manner as
anything but eagerness to help. And it sounded delightfully like
Timothy in their happier moments.

Her face broke into a forgiving smile.

She informed her repentant neighbor of how he had pleasantly reminded
her of Timothy; just who Timothy was, and all about him. Mr. Watts was
the personification of absorbed interest. Timothy sounded to him as if
he might be a "human being," he declared, and quite worth while.

Arethusa and her adjacent "member of the other sex" managed to get
along famously for the rest of the dinner, oblivious to the fact that
each had another person on the other side, Mr. Watts because he did not
like the girl in blue at his left, and Arethusa because she was almost
unconscious that there was anybody else at this table beside their two
selves. Mr. Watts was quite sufficient for her entertainment.

As the courses proceeded and Arethusa ate and laughed and chattered
away, from time to time her glance roved around the huge dining-room,
so gorgeously decorated for this occasion, admiring everything she saw,
the diners themselves, as well as the decorations. There were some very
pretty girls at this Party, as well as some passably handsome men; and
Arethusa liked the contrast of the sombre black and white of the men's
attiring silhouetted against the gay dresses of the girls near them.
And she liked to watch them as they laughed and talked together.

Among the faces which most interested her was one, a man's face, to
which she returned again and again to steal a look. Finally, she asked
Mr. Watts to tell her who he was.

"The one next to the girl with the feather fan, at that second table by
the pillar."

"Oh, that? That's Gridley Bennet."

There was something in the way he said the name that made Arethusa ask
if there was anything wrong