He caught Robert's eye and smiled and nodded
triumphantly.
"Now you see what she's really like, don't you?"
A string band, hidden in the orchestra under a roof of palms, played
the first bars of her dance, and then stopped short and waited
solemnly. She still stood, glass in hand.
"It is my birthday. God and I alone know which one. I drink to
myself. I wish myself good luck. _Vive_ myself. _Vive_ Gyp Labelle
and all who 'ave loved 'er and love 'er and shall love 'er!"
She drank her wine to the last drop, and the band began to play again,
knitting the broken, noisy congratulations into a kind of triumphal
chorus. It was very crude and theatrical and effective. It did not
matter, any more than it matters in a well-acted play, that the whole
incident had been rehearsed. It was as calculated and as spontaneous
as that nightly, irresistible burst of laughter.
Rufus Cosgrave stood up shyly in his place. Had he been dressed a
shade less perfectly and resisted the gardenia in his button-hole, he
would have been better disguised. As it was, there could be no
mistaking a little fellow from the suburbs who had got into bad
company. And in spite of the West Africa swamp and its peculiar forms
of despairing vice, he was so frightfully innocent that he did not know
it,
"And--and we're here to--to wish you luck too--that you go on--as you
are--dancing and laughing--making us all laugh and dance with
you--however down in the dumps we are--for ever and ever--and to bring
you offerings--for you to remember us by.
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