After that, with easy nonchalance approaching impudence, he turned to his own neglected dinner partner, Sylvia Quest, who received his tardy attentions with childish irritation. She didn't know any better. And there was now no time to patch up matters, for the signal to rise had been given and Dysart took Sylvia to the door with genuine relief. She bored him dreadfully since she had become sentimental over him. They always did. Lounging back through the rising haze of tobacco-smoke he encountered Peter Tappan and stopped to exchange a word. "Dancing?" he inquired, lighting his cigarette. Tappan nodded. "You, too, of course." For Dysart was one of those types known in society as a "dancing man." He also led cotillions, and a morally blameless life as far as the more virile Commandments were concerned. He said: "That little Seagrave girl is rather fetching." Tappan answered indifferently: "She resembles the general run of this year's output. She's weedy. They all ought to marry before they go about to dinners, anyway." "Marry whom?" "Anybody--Delancy, here, for instance. You know as well as I do that no woman is possible unless she's married," yawned Tappan. "Isn't that so, Delancy?" clapping Grandcourt on the shoulder. Grandcourt said "yes," to be rid of him; but Dysart turned around with his usual smile of amused contempt. "You think so, too, Delancy," he said, "because what is obvious and ready-made appeals to you. You think as you eat--heavily--and you miss a few things. That little Seagrave girl is charming. But you'd never discover it." Grandcourt slowly removed the fat cigar from his lips, rolled it meditatively between thick forefinger and thumb: "Do you know, Jack, that you've been saying that sort of thing to me for a number of years?" "Yes; and it's just as true now as it ever was, old fellow." "That may be; but did it ever occur to you that I might get tired hearing it.... And might, possibly, resent it some day?" For a long time Dysart had been uncomfortably conscious that Grandcourt had had nearly enough of his half-sneering, half-humourous frankness. His liking for Grandcourt, even as a schoolboy, had invariably been tinged with tolerance and good-humoured contempt. Dysart had always led in everything; taken what he chose without considering Grandcourt--sometimes out of sheer perversity, he had taken what Grandcourt wanted--not really wanting it himself--as in the case of Rosalie Dene. "What are you talking about resenting?--my monopolising your dinner partner?" asked Dysart, smiling. "Take her; amuse yourself. I don't want her." Grandcourt inspected his cigar again. "I'm tired of that sort of thing, too," he said. "What sort of thing?" "Contenting myself with what you don't want." Dysart lit a cigarette, still smiling, then shrugged and turned as though to go. Around them through the smoke rose the laughing clamour of young men gathering at the exit.