"Oh, sometimes we get a bit rowdy, but usually we're perfectly harmless—just conversation and music and food and meeting each other. We're congenial and interested in the same things, and keep each other from getting into a rut. Sometimes when one of us goes away or comes back, or sells a picture or an article, we have an extra celebration. That's all."
"It sounds—awfully interesting."
Herrick leaned across the table and said in a boyish, hesitating fashion:
"We do have some pretty good times. If you think you'd care for it, I'd like immensely to bring you round some evening."
"I'd love to." Jean was a trifle breathless.
"Some of us have made good and some of us are—popularly nobodies. There's Matthews and Harcourt, landscape, and Fletcher has done some fine things in bronze. Tolletson's in drama production and Freeman, Gerald Freeman, is going to be heard of with short stories. Maybe you know his stuff. He had a story in Scribner's last month. Then there are the girls, none of them are exactly famous yet; and the rest of us just jog along."
But Jean had stopped listening at Gerald Freeman's name. She had read the story and sent it to Pat. Its delicate subtlety had haunted her for days. And now she was being asked to meet him and others like him. She was being asked as if it were a favor to the big man with the kind eyes, sitting across the table. Jean tried to keep the excitement out of her voice as she answered.
"Yes, I read that story. It was so very—perfect."
"Yes. His things are that, those half elusive, dream things. They always make me think of small, finely carved ivories."
"I should like to meet him very much."