"How well you understand women," she commented with a smile.

"It's very nice of you to say so, though I haven't got the temerity to
agree with you."

Then, looking down at her intently, he added:

"I'm not likely, however, to forget that you've said it. . . . Perhaps
I may remind you of it some day."

The abrupt intensity of his manner startled her. For the second time
that evening the vivid personal note had been struck, suddenly and
unforgettably.

The presidential uprising of the women at the end of dinner saved her
from the necessity of a reply. Mallory drew her chair aside and, as he
handed her the cambric web of a handkerchief she had let fall, she
found him regarding her with a gently humorous expression in his eyes.

"This quaint English custom!" he said lightly. "All you women go into
another room to gossip and we men are condemned to the society of one
another! I'm afraid even I'm not British enough to appreciate such a
droll arrangement. Especially this evening."

Nan passed out in the wake of the other women to while away in
desultory small talk that awkward after-dinner interval which splits
the evening into halves and involves a picking up of the threads--not
always successfully accomplished--when the men at last rejoin the
feminine portion of the party. And what is it, after all, but a
barbarous relic of those times when a man must needs drink so much wine