left alone, captain utterbourne, humming gently, gazed across in a quizzical way at the man their talk had just concerned. he watched him with eyes a little narrowed; and underneath his lazy quiet there seemed to lurk something keen and purposeful. it was as though some subtle preparation were afoot.
presently he got up, strolled over to where king was lounging watching the dancers, and nodded with a smile flickering icily on his lips.
“king,” he began abruptly, yet in the dreamy, drawling tone which characterized most of his speech, “did you ever sit down before a map of the world and just let your mind go? h’m? it’s a gorgeous piece of adventure!” there was a tiny thrill of fire, and he seemed to be pulling the sentences up from some profound abyss. “a map of the world—h’m? what it has cost in toil and ingenuity—the long sifting of facts—the grim wrestle with legend—h’m?”
what could it mean? what was this new mystery of approach? there were forces busy here.
“think,” embroidered the captain,“—think of the slough of the middle ages, when what bothered the map-makers most was the pressure of the church, holding up before them those obscuring metaphysical allusions to ‘the four corners of the earth’—when the best they could do was to conceive of a rectangular world—h’m?—surrounded by—by the unknown! just think of it, king!”
a waltz swayed the dancers all about them. yes, there were forces busy here.
elsa dashed up. “oh, here you are!” she laughed easily and not very mirthfully. “yes, i know—i’m coming,” she soothingly interpolated over her shoulder to a youth with mussed hair who had wildly pursued her waving a program[30] with its flying cord and pencil. “i wanted mr. king to meet miss meade.” she grasped his arm and informally hurried him off, with a slight nod toward her father, which somehow fulfilled every demand of etiquette.
not far away sat stella, looking quite as delightful for the occasion as she felt over her thrilling share in it. she was wearing a dress elsa had insisted upon lending her—“since you seem to be so tired of your own clothes”; it was her way of being tactful. there had been some demur, but elsa, as usual, had her own way—said, indeed, she would positively have the invitation withdrawn unless stella agreed to take the dress too. there was a good deal of whimsy about elsa.
mr. king saluted stella with one of his most fascinating smiles. he bowed, too, in a courtly way, which made her catch her breath a little. “i’m delighted,” he murmured.
and stella, her eyes strangely full of light, paused just short of exclaiming: “there’s something about you—something i seem to remember....”
elsa prepared to dance off with her impatient partner, but turned to her father, who had strolled up, and warned him with dry playfulness: “please keep an eye on them, and don’t let them get so interested in each other that they forget about supper, because stella has that dance taken—haven’t you, stella?” she had been unflagging and a little brazen in her friend’s behalf.
“i believe so,” fluttered stella, excitedly glancing at her card, though in truth, her face all alight with momentarily realized dreams, she wasn’t much concerned over the possibility of any mere individual’s being able to subtract her attention from the glittering whole. nevertheless, that is exactly what did happen. she fell right into the trap elsa had mockingly cautioned against; and this is how it all came about.
