Mines, wasn't it? It
was something that paid something to the ton. You couldn't get a glass
of plain water in their house. Everything at that ball was dreadfully
overdone."
"It was," said Teddy.
"Such a crowd there was!" Octavia continued, conscious that she was
talking the rapid drivel of a school-girl describing her first dance.
"The balconies were as warm as the rooms. I--lost--something at
that ball." The last sentence was uttered in a tone calculated to
remove the barbs from miles of wire.
"So did I," confessed Teddy, in a lower voice.
"A glove," said Octavia, falling back as the enemy approached her
ditches.
"Caste," said Teddy, halting his firing line without loss. "I
hobnobbed, half the evening with one of Hammersmith's miners, a fellow
who kept his hands in his pockets, and talked like an archangel about
reduction plants and drifts and levels and sluice-boxes."
"A pearl-gray glove, nearly new," sighed Octavia, mournfully.
"A bang-up chap, that McArdle," maintained Teddy approvingly. "A
man who hated olives and elevators; a man who handled mountains as
croquettes, and built tunnels in the air; a man who never uttered a
word of silly nonsense in his life. Did you sign those lease-renewal
applications yet, madama? They've got to be on file in the land office
by the thirty-first.
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