"What's the matter now?" he asked. "That's Jazz Louie and his
half-breed bunch--three white and four mulatto. Let's----?"
"No, no," she whispered. "We must speak to Mildred and Mr. and
Mrs. Palmer."
"'Speak' to 'em? I haven't got a thing to say to THOSE berries!"
"Walter, won't you PLEASE behave?"
He seemed to consent, for the moment, at least, and suffered her
to take him down the corridor toward a floral bower where the
hostess stood with her father and mother. Other couples and
groups were moving in the same direction, carrying with them a
hubbub of laughter and fragmentary chatterings; and Alice,
smiling all the time, greeted people on every side of her
eagerly--a little more eagerly than most of them responded--while
Walter nodded in a noncommittal manner to one or two, said
nothing, and yawned audibly, the last resource of a person who
finds himself nervous in a false situation. He repeated his yawn
and was beginning another when a convulsive pressure upon his arm
made him understand that he must abandon this method of
reassuring himself. They were close upon the floral bower.
Mildred was giving her hand to one and another of her guests as
rapidly as she could, passing them on to her father and mother,
and at the same time resisting the efforts of three or four
detached bachelors who besought her to give over her duty in
favour of the dance-music just beginning to blare.
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