Harriet Ruth Platt. The clenched tightness came back in her chest. She called:
"Elliott! Come here a minute!" And then: "Oh, Donatia darling! Were you talking to him? I didn't notice! Keep him!"
Will he come? she thought, will he come? And her whole being willed, Come, so intensely that she felt weak with relief when he said, "Excuse me a minute, Donatia," and came across the room.
She began to talk wildly to anybody, everybody but Elliott, hearing her own voice as if it belonged to some one else, glowing from the admiring laughter that broke over her words. "She's turned the hostess into an innocent bystander," she heard a girl whisper; but the man she whispered to only answered, "Did you hear what that was she said?"
"What did you say those mandarin oranges were, Christabel?"
"Mandarin oranges are Chinese emperors. Fat little men in imperial yellow crêpe, with their hands tucked into their sleeves."
