y, Hamil recognised immediately her
attraction--experienced it, amused himself by yielding to it as he
exchanged conventionally preliminary observations with her across the
table.

Men, on first acquaintance, were usually very easily captivated, for she
had not only all the general attraction of being young, feminine, and
unusually ornamental, but she also possessed numberless individualities
like a rapid fire of incarnations, which since she was sixteen had kept
many a young man, good and true, madly guessing which was the real
Cecile. And yet all the various and assorted Ceciles seemed equally
desirable, susceptible, and eternally on the verge of being rounded up
and captured; that was the worst of it; and no young man she had ever
known had wholly relinquished hope. For even in the graceful act of
side-stepping the smitten, the girl's eyes and lips seemed unconsciously
to unite in a gay little unspoken promise--"This serial story is to be
continued in our next--perhaps."

As for the other people at the table Hamil began to distinguish one from
another by degrees; the fair-haired Anans, sister and brother, who spoke
of their celebrated uncle, Winslow Anan, and his predictions concerning
Hamil as his legitimate successor; Marjorie Staines, willowy, active,
fresh as a stem of white jasmine, and inconsequent as a very restless
bird; Philip Gatewood, grave, thin, prematurely saddened by the
responsibility of a vast inheritance, consumed by a desire for an
artistic career, looking at the world with his owlish eyes through the
prismatic colors of a set palette.

There were others there whom as yet he had been unable to
differentiate; smiling, well-mannered, affable people who chattered with
more or less intimacy among themselves as though accustomed to meeting
one another year after year in this winter rendezvous. And everywhere he
felt the easy, informal friendliness and goodwill of these young people.

"Are you being amused?" asked Shiela beside him. "My father's orders,
you know," she added demurely.

They stood up as Mrs. Carrick rose and left the table followed by the
others; and he looked at Shiela expecting her to imitate her sister's
example. As she did not, he waited beside her, his cigarette unlighted.

Presently she bent over the table, extended her arm, and lifted a small
burning lamp of silver toward him; and, thanking her, he lighted his
cigarette.

"Siesta?" she asked.

"No; I feel fairly normal."