"But I'm not. Not the least bit. Do I look so—so green, that I need protection?" Jean smiled, but this insistence that there was nothing to fear, annoyed her.
The woman thrust her face close to Jean's and scrutinized her carefully. "An azalea! That's it, an azalea! Listen, listen, all ye present, I've got it. Azalea, that's her Bunch name."
"Azalea! Azalea!" Above the noise, Flop's bass bellowed and he beat the table in a frenzy of approval, as if he could not have endured another moment without knowing the right name for Jean. Through the uproar, Herrick's smile reached like a cool touch. They drank Jean's baptism in the sour, red wine and the next moment the interrupted arguments were going on more violently than before. The name was adopted with voracious enthusiasm and complete indifference.
Rather exhausted by the suddenness of the proceeding, Jean drew back and tried to separate the mass before her into its elements. She wondered which were Harcourt and Tolletson and whether they had been "baptized" in wine. She scanned the faces along the opposite side, where Herrick was now listening with a frown to the girl in green; and then, as no one claimed her attention, leaned a little forward. There was a heavy-set young man with a swarthy skin, who talked with an Oxford accent and made Jewish gestures: a middle-aged man, with sleek hair and a Van Dyke, which he was continually stroking with a very white hand. He seemed to carry on his side of the argument with the swarthy person, in a series of grunts and inner explosions, as if his opinions were so violent that they erupted before he could bind them in words. There was also a woman with gray hair framing a young face and sad, kind brown eyes. She seemed interested, but said little, and Jean liked her. And there was a pale, tall girl, with black eyes and hair, who smoked cigarettes faster than the two men beside her could roll them, and who stared in smoldering hate at these men when she had to wait, as if they had mortally injured her. Jean laughed quietly to herself, but instantly the woman beside her turned.
"I'm not so sure 'Azalea' was right. You sound exactly like a dove when you do that, a deep-breasted, soft, blue dove—Paloma. I believe that's it! I say——"
"Oh, no, please don't. I like the other one better. But I do want to know something. Which is Mr. Harcourt and which is Mr. Tolletson?"
"Harcourt and Tolletson? My dear, they never come, that is, hardly ever. Harcourt lives in London and Tolletson spends most of his time in Paris. Mathews lives in bourgeoise respectability in the country with a legal wife and baby. They were Bunchers somewhere in the Dark Ages. Some of us wouldn't know them if we met them on the street, only down underneath, you know, we're kind of proud of them, and keep their names alive. Then, they have been known to come within the memory of man. Makes 'em feel more successful to measure the distance they've got away, I suppose."
"Oh!" Jean felt as if the woman had stripped something from her rudely, but that she must cover this rudeness from some deeper need to herself. After all, Herrick had not promised that these men would be there. She had jumped to that conclusion herself.
"But the rest of us do something every now and then, in a small way," the other went on, with an understanding glint in her eyes that made Jean flush. "Oh, never mind, it wasn't rude, not a bit. Most every one who comes first, expects to see them, and it's rather funny watching the efforts not to ask point blank. Not many are as frank as you. Do you see that black and white thing, smoking like a chimney, and looking as lively as a mummy? That's The Tiger—mad about Flop for the last six weeks, frightful length of time for either of them. He's disciplining her with Magnolia, that big, sleepy porpoise he's kissing. The Tiger and Magnolia write poetry, damned good, too, some of it, but they never bother printing it. Magnolia'd like to, but it's the only trick The Tiger's got—pretending she doesn't care for money or fame, and 'Nolia has to live up to the standard. The human skeleton next to me's Vicky Sergeant; he has no Bunch name because we couldn't find a fruit or animal he looked like. That girl in green next to Franklin is Vicky's wife. We call her The Kitten—for various reasons. And of course you know Franklin's Boy Blue."
"Why Boy Blue?"