Severance with a
chill self-satisfaction that Oliver noticed with pleasure was like touching
icicles to Ted. Ted gave his version--which only amounted to waking up on
the fire-escape, trying to shout and succeeding merely in getting mouthfuls
of towels--Oliver preened himself a little there--and lying there stoically
and getting more and more furious until he was rescued. And while he told
it he kept looking everywhere in the room but at Rose. And then Oliver
remembered Mr. Piper and looked at his watch--11.04. He rose and gazed at
Mrs. Severance.
"Well," he said, and then caught her eye. It was chilly, doubtless, and
even by Oliver's unconventional standards he could not think of her as
anything but a highly dangerous and disreputable woman--but that eye was
alive with an irony and humor that seemed to him for a moment more perfect
than those in any person he had ever seen. "_Must_ you go?" she said
sweetly. "It's been _such_ an interesting party--so _original_," she
hesitated. "Isn't that the word? Of course," she shrugged, "I can see that
you're simply dying to get away and yet you can hardly complain that I
haven't been an entertaining hostess, can you?"
"Hardly," said Oliver meekly, and Ted said nothing--he merely looked down
as if his eyes were augers and his only concern in life was screwing them
into the floor.
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