"Therein she differs from most unmusical people," Sally responded, in a swift aside. "Even truthful people will fib valiantly, where music is concerned, and go into raptures, when they have hard work to suppress their yawns. It was a sorry day for music, when it became the fashion."
"How droll you are, Miss Van Osdel!" Mrs. Lloyd Avalons was nothing, if not direct, in her personal comments. Then she answered Bobby. "Even if Mrs. Van Bleeker isn't really musical, it is a delight to work with her, she is so very charming and so business-like. Strange as it may seem, I actually take pleasure in our committee meetings, Mr. Dane."
"I haven't the slightest doubt of it," Bobby responded, with unctuous emphasis.
"When is the concert to be, Mrs. Avalons?" Beatrix asked hastily, with a frown at her cousin who stared blandly back at her.
"The first week in May, if we can possibly be ready for it. There was so much, just before Lent, that we postponed it until after Easter. Now we are no better off, for every day is full, so we are delaying it again. We want to make it a large affair, don't you know, something that will attract the swell set and the musical people, too."
If Bobby Dane hated one word in the language, that word was swell. Accordingly, he glared haughtily across the table at Mrs. Lloyd Avalons, noting, as he did so, the scornful cadence of her voice over the final phrase.
"The two sets rarely mingle, Mrs. Avalons. Which is under your especial care?"
Lorimer interposed hurriedly, for he felt the hostility in Bobby's tone, and he was ignorant of the thickness of Mrs. Lloyd Avalons's skin.
"Both, I should say from the make-up of your recital, Mrs. Avalons. Society and art both spelled themselves with capital letters, that night."
"I am sure it is very kind of you to say so," she answered, while her pleasure brought the first sincere note into her voice. "I tried to have something really good. But about this concert; we are to have a soprano from the Metropolitan Opera House, and possibly a violinist, and we want Mr. Thayer so much. Do you suppose we could get him?"