“Come, people, I know you are tired of cards. Let’s have some music and dance a while.”
“I’d rather play bridge with Mark than dance with him,” Mrs. Wiseman said. . . . “Whose trick was that?”
“There'll be plenty of men when the music starts,” Mrs. Maurier said.
“Mmmm,” replied Mrs. Wiseman. . . . “It'll take more than a victrola record to get any men on this party. . . . You'll need extradition papers. . . . Three without and three aces. How much is that, Ernest?”
“Wouldnt you like to dance, Mr. Talliaferro?” Mrs. Maurier persisted.
“Whatever you wish, dear lady,” Mr. Talliaferro answered with courteous detachment, busy with his pencil. “That makes—” he totted a column of his neat fingers, then he raised his head. “I beg your pardon: did you say something?”
“Don’t bother,” Mrs. Maurier said. “I'll put on a record myself: I’m sure our party will gather when they hear it.” She wound up the portable victrola and put on a record. “You finish your rubber, and I'll look about and see whom I can find,” she added. Mmmm, they replied.
The victrola raised its teasing rhythms of saxophones and drums, and Mrs. Maurier prowled around, peering into the shadows. She found the steward first, whom she dispatched to the gentlemen with a command couched in the form of an invitation. Then further along she discovered Gordon, and her niece sitting on the rail with her legs locked about a stanchion.
“Do be careful,” she said, “you might fall. We are going to dance a while,” she added happily.
“Not me,” her niece answered quickly. “Not to-night, anyway. You have to dance enough in this world on dry land.”
