Part 25 (1/2)

So she clung to Mr. Harrison for an old acquaintance, as to a rock in a weary land of unfamiliar surroundings. But such clinging was really unnecessary; for he wanted not to leave her side. Arethusa's little confusion only made her prettier.

”Am I going to sit by you at the dinner-table?” she asked him, when she had summoned sufficient courage to add this bit to the general uproar of pleasant conversation. It would help matters mightily, if she was.

”I don't know,” he began slowly, but then he added, very briskly indeed, ”but I can go find out and change the cards around if you're not.”

”Oh, don't leave me! Don't leave me!” Arethusa fairly shrieked this request, and she grabbed at his coat-tails as he started away. ”Please don't go off and leave me!”

Consequently, he was forced to leave her when they finally sought the dining-room, and he was miles away on the other side of the huge apartment at another table. Arethusa found herself next to a perfectly strange youth, a rotund, almost moon-faced individual with eyes that danced good-humoredly behind gla.s.ses.

This person addressed himself strictly to business, weeding out from the silver by his plate with such a rea.s.suring air of knowing that he did the right thing, a small article shaped like a tiny pitchfork, that Arethusa followed suit immediately.

But she had a very decided dislike of eating blindly ahead without knowing what it was she ate, and although the objects before her presented a rather familiar appearance, she wanted to be quite positive. Having somewhat recovered her spirits by this time, it was not so hard to ask her neighbor the question. He did not look at all formidable, and one talked to one's partner at dinners, so the ”Advice”

had said, and it had not specified any condition of previously knowing that partner.

CHAPTER XVI

”Would you mind telling me,” inquired Arethusa, as courteously as possible, ”what these are?”

But her neighbor paid no attention.

She repeated her request, raising her voice a trifle. ”Maybe he's deaf,” she thought.

And this time he turned, ”I beg your pardon.... But did you speak to me?”

”Yes,” she replied, ”I asked you to tell me what these were.”

He stared at her, surprised into a direct reply, ”Why, they're oysters!”

”Oysters!”

Arethusa examined them critically. No wonder they had looked so familiar! ”But they're raw!” she exclaimed.

”It's an oyster c.o.c.ktail! Of course they're raw!”

”But I never saw them this way before! I didn't know people ate raw fish at Parties! I.... This is the Very First Party I ever went to,”

she explained. It was surely extenuation enough for any ignorance of the customs of such gatherings!

His glance searched her, up and down. He struggled visibly with amus.e.m.e.nt. It was all he could do not to laugh outright.

”I suppose you're visiting here?” he remarked, after awhile, when speech was once more somewhat of a possibility.

Arethusa thought it was most polite of him to show this interest. She nodded.

”I'm Arethusa Worthington.”

”Arethusa Worthington!” The youth was all real interest and animation at once. ”Not Mr. Ross Worthington's daughter! Why, I ... I'm proud to call him one of my best friends! I'm just crazy about that man! I met him abroad. And so you're really his daughter! I certainly am glad to meet you! Now, that I think, of it, I believe he did tell me the other day that you were coming!”