Bingham's eyes followed him out. "Whom have you there?" "Somebody of Belden's--a new hand; some of the sediment left from the Fair." "That's where I've seen him. He was in the Service building--draughtsman, clerk, or something. Swiss? Alsacian?" "I don't know," replied Marshall. "He speaks German and some French." Half unconsciously he began upon his mail. "It would be more to the purpose if he spoke English--better." Bingham reached for his hat. "Well, time's money to both of us. English is an easy thing to pick up--as witness Midway. I dare say he'll be able to express himself fluently enough inside of another six months. Good-morning." XI "There!" Jane had said to herself, as he stood before her small looking-glass to give a final touch to her hair and to pull out her puffed sleeves to their widest for the tenth and last time; "if I can keep in mind that I am thirty-three years old, and not a day less, I imagine I shall get through all right. Of course I sha'n't go on the floor and dance--at least, not very much. Perhaps nobody will ask me, anyway; of course I can expect nothing from Theodore Brower, who couldn't waltz any more than he could fly. No; I'll just sit in the box, and then nobody can say that I am giddy, or flighty, or trying to be too young." She cast a last glance towards her looking-glass, which seemed smaller than ever. "I do wish I could see both of them at once. I hope Theodore will like 'em; the chances are, though, he'll never notice 'em at all." Such had been Jane's modest and cautious programme, and she carried it out pretty closely. She sat in the box with Mrs. Bates a good part of the evening, and bowed a great many times to a great many gentlemen, young and old, whom she had never seen before and never expected to see again, and whose names, therefore, she made no effort to secure. She talked with two or three with whom it seemed possible and profitable to talk, and learned their names afterwards. Mr. Bates himself spent very little time in his wife's box. He lounged on one of the springy sofas in the narrow lobby behind, or leaned over the burnished barriers of other boxes to talk murmurously with other magnates about the Stock Exchange or the volume of traffic. He was a grave and somewhat inexpressive person, with reticent eyes and snow-white bunches of side-whiskers, and a rather cold and impassive manner. His wife followed his peregrinations with an indulgent eye. "Poor Granger," she said to Jane; "this thing tires him more and more every year. So I give him plenty of leeway. See him now." She looked over her shoulder, where, twenty feet away, her husband was talking across the bronze bar with another elderly man in the adjoining box. "It's a conference," she went on--"it's a deal; it's on my account--he told me so himself. If it goes through it means another string to this necklace." She suddenly became quite smileless and rigid. "Why, what's the matter?" asked Jane.