Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1911-07-21

white face. became visible; Eiinor Cool
idge was pale and motionless. and
Fanny's eyes swan in lake of tears,
which she struggled to keep from over
flowing.
Again 1t struck Loveland that he was
living in q dream-the gorgeous room;
the crowd of we'll dressed men and beau
tiful women: the hurrying walters: the
lights: the fragrance of flowers and food
and scented laces: the chatter OF laugh
ing voices. subdued by distance, and more
unreal than all. the table surrounded by
the faces that he knew. faces he had ex
pected to find smiling in friendship. now
frozen into something like horror-horror
at him, Lord Loveland, whom everybody
had always wanted and admired.
1t could not be true. 1t was not hap
pening really. Things like this did not
happen.
He stood for moment, stupidity, like a
boy in the schoolroom who has been bid
den to stand UP and be stared at as q
punishment FOR some misdemeanor He
was almost inclined 70 laugh at the in
science of Cadwaliader Hunter, as lion
might laugh at a fox terrier worrying his
foot 1t was on his lips to say. What
tempest in a teapot. Surely you're not
hunting ass may have trumped UP about
me?'
But he bit back the words. II they
chose to champion Cadwallader Hunter
in his silly grievance against Marquis
Of Loveland. why let them. They would
be sorry afterward-when it was too late.
To sheer Cadwallader Hunter down as he
deserved would be to make disagree
able scene, and the business was squalid
enough already. He would have thought
better of the Coolidges, II not of the Mil
tons, mother and daughter: but he said
to himself that none Of them was worth
even the shrug of the shoulders he gave.
as, with his head held CALAMITY high, he
passed on toward his own table.
The little dramatic episode, II observed
by any audience, had been played too
subtly to be understood by those not con-
cerned. Those seated nearest might have
seen that when q handsome young man
stopped to speak to some members Of q
party at a table another man who did
not belong to that party had looked at
him scornfully and whispered venomous-
ly; that then one or two others had
spoken hurriedly. and that the handsome
young man had stalked away apparently
in disgust.
But several of the neighbors knew the
party at the table by sight, and Cad
together, and wondered who was the tall
young man who looked like an English
man. The women commented fiatteringly
upon his face or his figure, but the men
way Cadwallader Hunter ("Pepys Junior
they called him) had eyed the chap he
must be the rankest kind Of an outsider.
There were two chairs at 1lOveland' s
table-placed in case he might choose to
bring guest-and he deliberately selected
the one which put him with his back to
the Coolidge party. But he had forgotten
that Maj. Cadwallader Hunter was not
one of that party. and might wander at
will to any part Of the dining room.
Presently he did begin to wander. stop
ping to talk with another group Of peo-
pie. then with another. and So on, always
on his way somewhere else.
Loveland, utterly sick now Of his late
friend, did not bestow a glance upon the
thin. high-shouldered figure as 1t paused
and fitted, fitted and paused, like q fas-
tidious bee in flower garden. A polite
waiter had slipped menu into the hand
Of Ioveland. who regarded the decorated
square Of cardboard as II it were a fetish
to preserve him from evil. But II he had
deigned to let his eye follow Cadwallader
Hunter he would have seen that each
group Of people glanced with furtive curl
osity at him: stared. whispered. stared
again. and afterward signaled each other
lifting eyebrows and exchanging signs of
q secret intelligence.
Cadwallader Hunter prided himself on
knowing all the people who were worth
knowing, wherever he went. and those
he did not know at the start he generally
contrived to know at the finish. He had.
at least. twenty or thirty acquafntances
in the restaurant OF the Waldorf-Astoria
tonight; and having heard from one OF
these q startling piece OF news (Which
would have been less welcome yesterday
he dropped bits OF the rich honey-pollen
here and there as he made his way to-
ward the door. He had dir,ed early, be-
self, rather late. at the Arst performances
Of q nav comedy by the brilliant Young