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.  Looking from Valerie to Neville, he said very innocently: 

“Kelly, you know that peachy dream with whom you cut up so shamefully on New-year’s night?  Well, she asked me for your telephone number—­”

“What are you talking about?” demanded Neville, annoyed.

“Why, I’m talking about Mazie,” said Sam, pleasantly.  “You remember Mazie Gray?  And how crazy you and she became about each other?”

Valerie, who was pouring tea, remained amiably unconcerned; and Ogilvy obtained no satisfaction from her; but Neville’s scowl was so hearty and unfeigned that a glimpse of his visage sent Annan into fits of laughter.  To relieve which he ran across the floor, like a huge spider.  Then Valerie leisurely lifted her tranquil eyes and her eyebrows, too, a trifle.

“Why such unseemly contortions, Harry?” she inquired.

“Sam tormenting Kelly to stir you up!  He’s got a theory that you and Kelly are mutually infatuated.”

“What a delightful theory, Sam,” said Valerie, smiling so sincerely at Ogilvy that he made up his mind there wasn’t anything in it.  But the next moment, catching sight of Neville’s furious face, his opinion wavered.

Valerie said laughingly to Rita:  “They’ll never grow up, these two—­” nodding her head toward Ogilvy and Annan.  And to Neville carelessly—­too carelessly:  “Will you have a little more tea, Kelly dear?”

Her attitude was amiable and composed; her voice clear and unembarrassed.  There may have been a trifle more colour in her cheeks; but what preoccupied Rita was in her eyes—­a fleeting glimpse of something that suddenly concentrated all of Rita’s attention upon the girl across the table.

For a full minute she sat looking at Valerie who seemed pleasantly unconscious of her inspection; then almost stealthily she shifted her gaze to Neville.

Gladys and her kitten came purring around in quest of cream; Rita gathered them into her arms and caressed them and fed them bits of cassava and crumbs of cake.  She was unusually silent that afternoon.  John Burleson tried to interest her with heavy information of various kinds, but she only smiled absently at that worthy man.  Sam Ogilvy and Harry Annan attempted to goad her into one of those lively exchanges of banter in which Rita was entirely capable of taking care of herself.  But her smile was spiritless and non-combative; and finally they let her alone and concentrated their torment upon Valerie, who endured it with equanimity and dangerously sparkling eyes, and an occasional lightening retort which kept those young men busy, especially when the epigram was in Latin—­which hurt their feelings.