Madder ruffled his long, sandy locks and disarranged his careless tie.
“Don’t think of it, Vandy,” he replied. “We are short, and Art is long.”
Medora ate strange viands and drank elderberry wine that they poured in her glass. It was just the color of that in the Vermont home. The waiter poured something in another glass that seemed to be boiling, but when she tasted it it was not hot. She had never felt so light-hearted before. She thought lovingly of the Green Mountain farm and its fauna. She leaned, smiling, to Miss Elise.
“If I were at home,” she said, beamingly, “I could show you the cutest little calf!”
“Nothing for you in the White Lane,” said Miss Elise. “Why don’t you pad?”
The orchestra played a wailing waltz that Medora had learned from the hand-organs. She followed the air with nodding head in a sweet soprano hum. Madder looked across the table at her, and wondered in what strange waters Binkley had caught her in his seine. She smiled at him, and they raised glasses and drank of the wine that boiled when it was cold. Binkley had abandoned art and was prating of the unusual spring catch of shad. Miss Elise arranged the palette-and-maul-stick tie pin of Mr. Vandyke. A Philistine at some distant table was maundering yolubly either about Jerome or Gérôme. A famous actress
[204]
