"Perhaps. All right. I promise. Only you must promise that Dalton won't get at them too heavily. I like the men, both of them, and I don't want to spend the rest of my life paying up the obligation of this tea."
"I'll rescue them personally, if I see them in danger. I can't promise more."
"That will do. Only don't neglect me in your kind offices. I still labor under the delusion, in spite of Alice, that the main interest of a tea is the food."
"Don't worry. I'll watch over you and your digestion, too; the refreshments are going to be a wonder."
"On those conditions I expect to enjoy myself." And with the Gregory-grin Jerome went back to his own office.
But on the following Sunday, when Jean entered the already crowded rooms, she saw only Alice and Sidney in the group gathered about Tony. Jerome was nowhere in sight. Jean had deliberately waited until she had heard Tony tuning up, so that now, as the room rustled to expectant silence, she slipped into the shadow of the heavy curtains drawn to assist the candle-light and took in the scene with quiet amusement. They all looked so different somehow: Gerte in a slithery green thing that would have delighted The Tiger; Nan like a lovely duchess in palest lavender and Catherine in severe and expensive black. Jean recalled Mary's "humans functioning socially" and she felt as if she were watching some distinct psychological process.
"Fine show, isn't it?" Philip stepped from the deeper shadow of the curtains unexpectedly, but the understanding in his eyes merged so with Jean's own thoughts that his being there did not surprise.
"Really, clothes are ridiculous," she whispered back, feeling a comradely nearness to him in this identity of impression. "Perfectly harmless material cut and slashed into the wildest shapes. Take any one of those gowns and look at it long enough and it gets screamingly funny. Look." In her own interest and Philip's understanding, Jean laid a hand on his arm, turning him slightly toward a friend of Gerte's, a red-haired, slender girl in a tunic embroidered in green and gold dragons, fastened with cords and blobs of coral beads. "Now, why is that rig necessary because she sculps, and what, in Heaven's name, did it start out in life to be?"
Philip looked as Jean directed, but his eyes moved independently, for the rest of his body was concentrating at the point where Jean's fingers rested lightly on his arm.
"Li Hung Chang's combing jacket," he offered after a moment, when Jean had removed her hand. Jean laughed and was just going to ask him what he thought of some one else, when Tony began to play.