This time Lena followed with greater sense of security. She knew her dress was pretty and becoming, though inexpensive; and as for conversation, that to Lena’s mind meant clothes and society, with which she felt a journalistic familiarity.
“Perhaps you prefer cream in your tea?” said Mrs. Lenox, with hand poised over the little table.
“No, thank you, I like lemon,” answered Lena, who had never tasted it before and now thought it very nasty indeed. Then she wondered why she had told such a small useless lie.
But it was comfortable to be in a big lovely room with a pile of logs blazing in a great fireplace, and soft lamps shedding a glow rather than making spots of light. She wished she had, like Madeline, picked out a very easy chair instead of the stiff one she had selected, but she felt too shy to move until Mrs. Lenox suggested it, and then she was embarrassed because she was embarrassed. She wondered if she should ever be able to do things like these women, without thinking of what she was doing.
Madeline was idly turning the pages of a magazine and now she held it up.
“Look at these illustrations. Aren’t they stunning?”
“I don’t know,” said Mrs. Lenox. “I’m growing tired of that kind of thing. It isn’t art; it’s a fad. The trouble with most of this modern work is that it is too smart and fashionable. The clothes are more important than the people.”
“Quite a contrast to ancient art, where the people were everything and the clothes nothing,” Madeline retorted. “After all, I rather like the modern way. The old Greeks were not a bit more real people. They were nothing but types.”
“And very decapitated and de-legged types,” said Mrs. Lenox with a laugh. “And dirty, too—like the Sleeping Beauty. Do you know, it gives me the shivers to think of the Sleeping Beauty, lying there for ages, with dust and cobwebs accumulating on her. I’m sure I hope the prince gave her a thorough dusting before he kissed her.”
“You are horribly realistic, Vera—a person with no imagination.”