"Bring out the table; that's an exceedingly nice boy.

Rita, you'll have tea, too, won't you, dear ?" Unconsciously she had come to assume the role of hostess in Neville's studio, even among those who had been familiar there long before Neville ever heard of her.
Perfectly unaware herself of her instinctive attitude, other people noticed it.

For the world is sharp-eyed, and its attitude is always alert, ears pricked forward even when its tail wags good-naturedly.
Ogilvy watched her curiously as she took her seat at the tea table.
Then he glanced at Neville; but could not make up his mind.
It would be funny if there was anything between Valerie and Neville--anything more than there ever had been between the girl and dozens of her men friends.

For Ogilvy never allowed himself to make any mistake concerning the informality and freedom of Valerie West in her intimacies with men of his kind.

She was a born flirt, a coquette, daring, even indiscreet; but that ended it; and he knew it; and so did every man with whom she came in contact.
Yet--and he looked again at her and then at Neville--there seemed to him to be, lately, something a little different in the attitudes of these two toward each other--nothing that he could name--but it preoccupied him sometimes.
There was a little good-natured malice in Ogilvy; some masculine curiosity, too.