Gwenna, who was always bubbling over with young curiosity about the fresh people whom she was to meet at a party, had never taken overmuch interest in the places where the party might be held.
She had not yet reached the age when, for information about new acquaintances, one glances first at their background.
To her the well-appointed though slightly "Art"-y Smith establishment where her friend was taking her to dine was merely "a married house." She took for granted the arrangements thereof. She lumped them all—from the slim, deferential parlour-maid who ushered them through a thickly-carpeted corridor with framed French etchings into a spacious bedroom where the girls removed their wraps, down to the ivory, bemonogrammed pin-tray and powder-box in front of the big mirror—she lumped these all together as "things you have when you're married."
It never struck her—it never strikes eight out of ten young girls—that Marriage does not necessarily bring these "things" with their subtle assurance of ease, security, and dignity in its train. She never thought about it. Marriage indeed seemed to her a sort of dullish postscript to what she imagined must be a thrilling letter.
Why must nearly all married people become so stodgy? Gwenna simply couldn't imagine herself getting stodgy—or fat, like this married sister of Leslie Long's, who was receiving her guests in the large upstairs drawing-room into which the two girls were now shown.
This room, golden and creamy, seemed softly aglow. There were standard lamps with huge amber crinolines, bead-fringed; and flowers—yellow roses and white lilies—seemed everywhere.
Leslie Long drew one of the lilies out of a Venetian vase and held it out, like an usher's rod, towards Gwenna as she followed her into the bright, bewildering room, full of people. She announced, "Maudie, here's the stop-gap. Taffy Williams, your hostess."
Her hostess was a version of Leslie grown incredibly matronly. Her auricula-coloured velvet tea-gown looked as if it had been clutched about her at the last moment. (Which in point of fact it had. Mrs. Smith was quite an old-fashioned mother.) Yet from her eyes smiled the indestructible Girl that is embedded in so many a respectable matron, and she looked down very kindly at Gwenna, the cherub-headed, in her white frock.
Mr. Smith, who had a large smooth face and a bald head, gave Gwenna a less cordial glance. Had the truth been known, he was sulking over the non-appearance of the intelligent young woman (from the Poets' Club) whose place was taken by this vacuous-looking flapper (his summing-up of Miss Gwenna Williams). For Gwenna this bald and wedded patriarch of forty-five scarcely existed. She glanced, nervous and fluttered and interested, towards the group of other guests gathered about the nearer of the two flower-filled fireplaces; a pretty woman in rose-colour and two men of thirty or thereabouts, one of whom (rather stout, with an eye-glass, a black stock-tie, and a lock of brown hair brought down beside his ear like a tiny side-whisker) made straight for Leslie Long.
"Now don't attempt to pretend we haven't met," Gwenna heard him say in a voice of flirtatious yearning. "Last time you cut my dance——"