Evidently a bit light of love, neither popular nor unpopular--every
girl there seemed to have had an affair with him at some time or other,
but no one volunteered any really useful information. He was going to
fall for her. . . . Sally had published that information to her young
set and they were retailing it back to Sally as fast as they set eyes
on Isabelle. Isabelle resolved secretly that she would, if necessary,
_force_ herself to like him--she owed it to Sally. Suppose she were
terribly disappointed. Sally had painted him in such glowing colors--
he was good-looking, "sort of distinguished, when he wants to be,"
had a line, and was properly inconstant. In fact, he summed up all the
romance that her age and environment led her to desire. She wondered
if those were his dancing-shoes that fox-trotted tentatively around the
soft rug below.

All impressions and, in fact, all ideas were extremely kaleidoscopic to
Isabelle. She had that curious mixture of the social and the artistic
temperaments found often in two classes, society women and actresses.
Her education or, rather, her sophistication, had been absorbed from the
boys who had dangled on her favor; her tact was instinctive, and her
capacity for love-affairs was limited only by the number of the
susceptible within telephone distance. Flirt smiled from her large
black-brown eyes and shone through her intense physical magnetism.

So she waited at the head of the stairs that evening while slippers
were fetched. Just as she was growing impatient, Sally came out of the
dressing-room, beaming with her accustomed good nature and high spirits,
and together they descended to the floor below, while the shifting
search-light of Isabelle's mind flashed on two ideas: she was glad she
had high color to-night, and she wondered if he danced well.