Schroder followed Fanny down the steps. As the door of the Basine apartment closed behind them, his fingers clutched her elbow and he leaned against her in a straightforward, jovial manner.
Her experience as a married woman had brought a directness into Fanny's mind. She no longer found it necessary to conceal her thoughts from herself. She was still inclined to be publicly innocent but her mental life had taken on the proportions of an endless debauch. Marriage not only legalized sex but removed the barriers to thinking about it. She felt herself blushing childishly as Schroder, squeezing her arm, opened the door with a flourish.
15
The Gilchrist home on Lake Shore drive was crowded with friends and relatives. They had come to the funeral of William Gilchrist. Mr. Gilchrist lay in a coffin in the drawing room, a waxen-faced figure under a glass cover. Flowers filled the large room with a damp, sweet odor.
It was a spring morning. The air was colored with rain. A sulphurous glow lay on the pavements. It was chilly. Automobiles lined the curb outside the Gilchrist stone house. Polite, sober-faced people arrived in couples and groups and walked seriously up the stone steps of the residence, a swarm of mummers striving awkwardly to register grief.
Dignitaries from different strata were assembling. The Gilchrists were a family whose prestige was ramified by varied contacts. Celebrities of the society columns arrived—famous tea pourers, tiara wearers, charity patronesses. Professional men ranging from retired fuddy-duddies, applying their waning financial talents to the diversion of philanthropy, to corporation heads, prominent legal advisors and medical geniuses renowned for their taciturnity—these came for Mrs. Gilchrist. Bankers, merchants, industrial captains, hospital bigwigs—these came as husbands and also as contemporaries of Mr. Gilchrist.
The leaders of the city's arts—a sprinkling of painters aping the manners of dapper business men, of authors vastly superior to the Bohemian nature of their calling, of advertising Napoleons, opera followers, national advertisers—these came for Aubrey. Fanny, through her brother who had a month before been elected a judge, drew a formidable group of names—political factotums, powers behind thrones, mystic local Cromwells. Also the Younger Set. Added to these were relatives, business associates and finally the Press.
There was a dead man under a glass cover in the house and the distinguished company, crowding the large somber rooms of the Gilchrist home, eyed each other gravely and addressed each other in whispers. The dead man could not hear, yet they spoke in whispers. Even the most renowned of the dignitaries whose lives were a round of formalities almost as impressive as this, spoke in whispers and seemed ill at ease.
They drifted about like nervous butlers and took up positions against the walls, striking uncertain attitudes. They exchanged polite and sober greetings and felt slightly strengthened in spirit at the sight of people as distinguished as themselves. The camaraderie of prestige—the social caress which celebrities alone are able to bestow upon each other by basking in a mutual feeling of superiority—ran like an undercurrent through the scene.