"Yes, happy about everything," she added, so that Marise might understand without the maid sharing her enlightenment.
"I am, just that!" agreed Marise, stealing time to breathe before Céline should take off Dolores' "bedroom-scene" dress.
She looked round the room. It had been decorated by the Russian-French artist, Herté (who had never seen her), to suit Sargent's portrait which Belloc had lent him to study. In the girl's opinion it did not suit her at all, unless she were in reality a tigress camouflaged to represent a sheaf of lilies. But evidently that was what Herté thought she was, and his conception of her temperament made the girl feel subtle and mysterious. She adored feeling like that, and she adored Herté's tawny orange splashes on violent blues, and his sombre blacks and dazzling whites and lemon yellows, which somehow did not fade her sunlight fairness. People knew about this room, for descriptions and photographs of it had appeared in all the papers since she and Mums landed; consequently everyone had sent flowers to match Herté's famous colourings.
There were silver azaleas, black tulips, queer scarlet roses, Japanese tiger lilies, weird magenta orchids, and purple pinks. Severance had sent blue lilies—the blue that Marise loved, and called "the colour of her soul." The lilies had been the best of the huge collection, until the Exciting Thing came—the thing accompanied by no letter, no card. Towards this object the eyes of Marise travelled. She had been "intrigued" by it the whole evening, whenever she had time to think, and puzzle over its charm and mystery.
"It" was a table; a small, round tea-table of rich red mahogany with a well in its centre for flowers, and small holes in a line circling its edge for the same purpose. These receptacles were filled and hidden with the largest, purplest, and most fragrant violets Marise had ever seen, and their amethyst tones, massed against the dark, rose-brown wood, produced an exquisite effect. Marise believed herself an up-to-date young woman, and her Persian dressing-room in London had rivalled Lily Brayton's Chinese room during the run of "Chu Chin Chow." But she had never heard of such a design as this in tables. It must be the newest of the new, and invented by a great artist, she thought. In fear of seeming ignorant, she had asked no questions of anyone, hoping to glean information by luck: and vanity, as usual with her, had its own reward.
"By George, who sent you Herté's latest?" Belloc had exclaimed, when he bounced into her room before the first act to see if his star were "going strong."
Marise had to admit that she didn't know. But she put on an air of awareness as to Herté. This was the sort of thing her mother taught her: to seem innocent, but never ignorant—especially of anything "smart." Mrs. Sorel had suggested that Herté himself might have contributed the lovely specimen of his work, to complete the decoration of the room. Belloc, however, had vetoed this idea. If there were no accompanying poem, or at least a card, Herté wasn't guilty. He was not a young man who bothered to blush unseen. So that hypothesis was "off"; and Marise could think of no one among her acquaintances likely to spend so much cash without getting credit.
Belloc was giving a supper for her after the theatre, and Herté was there; a dark, haggardly beautiful young man who looked as if he had detached himself from one of his own wall decorations. Belloc had placed him next the star, not knowing whether Marise were really engaged to Lord Severance or not; and the first question the girl asked was about the table.
"Ah, you have my beloved violet-table!" he said, looking at her in the way he had with beautiful young women: stripping her with his eyes and dressing her all over again in a gown of his own creation. "I am glad—glad."
"You didn't know?"