Selden rose too, and they stood facing each other.
Suddenly she caught his hand and pressed it a moment against her cheek.
"Ah, love me, love me--but don't tell me so!" she sighed with her eyes in his; and before he could speak she had turned and slipped through the arch of boughs, disappearing in the brightness of the room beyond.
Selden stood where she had left him.

He knew too well the transiency of exquisite moments to attempt to follow her; but presently he reentered the house and made his way through the deserted rooms to the door.

A few sumptuously-cloaked ladies were already gathered in the marble vestibule, and in the coat-room he found Van Alstyne and Gus Trenor.
The former, at Selden's approach, paused in the careful selection of a cigar from one of the silver boxes invitingly set out near the door.
"Hallo, Selden, going too?
You're an Epicurean like myself, I see: you don't want to see all those goddesses gobbling terrapin.

Gad, what a show of good-looking women; but not one of 'em could touch that little cousin of mine.

Talk of jewels--what's a woman want with jewels when she's got herself to show?
The trouble is that all these fal-bals they wear cover up their figures when they've got 'em.