So she clung to Mr. Harrison for an old acquaintance, as to a rock in a weary land of unfamiliar surroundings. But such clinging was really unnecessary; for he wanted not to leave her side. Arethusa's little confusion only made her prettier.

"Am I going to sit by you at the dinner-table?" she asked him, when she had summoned sufficient courage to add this bit to the general uproar of pleasant conversation. It would help matters mightily, if she was.

"I don't know," he began slowly, but then he added, very briskly indeed, "but I can go find out and change the cards around if you're not."

"Oh, don't leave me! Don't leave me!" Arethusa fairly shrieked this request, and she grabbed at his coat-tails as he started away. "Please don't go off and leave me!"

Consequently, he was forced to leave her when they finally sought the dining-room, and he was miles away on the other side of the huge apartment at another table. Arethusa found herself next to a perfectly strange youth, a rotund, almost moon-faced individual with eyes that danced good-humoredly behind gla.s.ses.

This person addressed himself strictly to business, weeding out from the silver by his plate with such a rea.s.suring air of knowing that he did the right thing, a small article shaped like a tiny pitchfork, that Arethusa followed suit immediately.

But she had a very decided dislike of eating blindly ahead without knowing what it was she ate, and although the objects before her presented a rather familiar appearance, she wanted to be quite positive. Having somewhat recovered her spirits by this time, it was not so hard to ask her neighbor the question. He did not look at all formidable, and one talked to one's partner at dinners, so the "Advice"

had said, and it had not specified any condition of previously knowing that partner.

CHAPTER XVI

"Would you mind telling me," inquired Arethusa, as courteously as possible, "what these are?"

But her neighbor paid no attention.

She repeated her request, raising her voice a trifle. "Maybe he's deaf," she thought.

And this time he turned, "I beg your pardon.... But did you speak to me?"

"Yes," she replied, "I asked you to tell me what these were."

He stared at her, surprised into a direct reply, "Why, they're oysters!"

"Oysters!"

Arethusa examined them critically. No wonder they had looked so familiar! "But they're raw!" she exclaimed.

"It's an oyster c.o.c.ktail! Of course they're raw!"

"But I never saw them this way before! I didn't know people ate raw fish at Parties! I.... This is the Very First Party I ever went to,"

she explained. It was surely extenuation enough for any ignorance of the customs of such gatherings!

His glance searched her, up and down. He struggled visibly with amus.e.m.e.nt. It was all he could do not to laugh outright.

"I suppose you're visiting here?" he remarked, after awhile, when speech was once more somewhat of a possibility.

Arethusa thought it was most polite of him to show this interest. She nodded.

"I'm Arethusa Worthington."

"Arethusa Worthington!" The youth was all real interest and animation at once. "Not Mr. Ross Worthington's daughter! Why, I ... I'm proud to call him one of my best friends! I'm just crazy about that man! I met him abroad. And so you're really his daughter! I certainly am glad to meet you! Now, that I think, of it, I believe he did tell me the other day that you were coming!"

Arethusa smiled all over, showing every dimple; she felt at home immediately with any friend of her father's, self-announced though he might be.

"My name's Watts, Miss Worthington," he continued, "William Watts. But most people call me 'Billy.'"

"I don't know you quite well enough yet to call you 'Billy,'" she replied, seriously reproving. "But wasn't it just dear that we happened to sit next to each other?"

Mr. Watts enthusiastically agreed. And acquaintanceship established on this firm foundation, he turned his attention once more to food.

"Don't you like oysters?"

"Yes, but they look so horrid! Ugh!" Arethusa shivered. "Generally, I love 'em, but these are raw! I never ate any raw ones before!"

"Go ahead and try them," he urged in all friendliness. "If you like them at all, you'll like them this way, too, I'll bet."

But she still hung back, "I don't know how."

"It's perfectly easy. Just like this." He speared one and lifted it to show her.

Arethusa watched the operation, fascinated at his skill, but she shook her head with decision when he suggested that she do likewise.

"I couldn't possibly. I believe I'd drop it. That little pitchfork thing doesn't look near big enough to hold such an enormous oyster."

"Oh, you won't drop any," he encouraged; "n.o.body ever has that I have heard of. Go on and try."

"No," she shook her head again, "no, I don't believe I will. I think I'd much rather practice at home first."

For it looked far too difficult to attempt thus offhand, even though rea.s.sured that none had ever been dropped. And should one really miss its way to her mouth and fall off the pitchfork thing to land in her lap? Well, the Dress was far too beautiful and too precious to be risked so foolishly. Those oysters had a most slimy appearance.

There was a little silence while the epicurean Mr. Watts consumed his oysters unaccompanied.

Arethusa wondered if the time was ripe for her to introduce into the Conversation the Subject of Lepidoptera, but if it was, she was quite at a loss how to do so with "ease and grace." Perhaps a little Poetry would be appreciated, but there was nothing as yet with which it could be "interspersed." None of the verses she knew had any remotest application to what had been said so far.

Mr. Watts finished his oysters to the very last one, and then turned her way with a little sigh of satisfaction.

"You certainly did make a mistake this time, Miss Worthington, for those were perfectly bully. This hotel is rather famous for its sea food, you know, especially for oysters."

Now Arethusa was getting somewhat tired of hearing of these bivalves and their extremely succulent taste; she did not want the entire evening to be given over to a discussion of oysters. There were other things. The Subject she had been at such pains to prepare, for instance, would make a much more interesting Conversation. So she plunged right in.

"Do you know anything about Lep--lep-e-e-top-dera?" she asked, with a charming and social smile.

He looked frankly puzzled.

"Moths and b.u.t.terflies," she added, in explanation to that questioning expression.

"No, I bite. What about 'em?"

"I thought they would be nice for us to talk about. I read about them in the Encyclopedia so I could. The 'Advice to Young Ladies' said at a dinner you must always have something to talk about."