It was two weeks after Claude Vernon's death.
The Carlton house was lighted brilliantly, and a gay card-party was in progress. The rooms were beautifully decorated with carnations. Great vases of Niphetos and Perle roses stood on the marble mantels. Festoons of costly vines were hung about the walls, and a fountain of perfumed water played in the wide hall. A band of mandolin musicians was stationed in a handsome alcove near the stairway. As one entered this richly adorned mansion, everything pleased the eye, the young people were laughing and jesting, the groups about the different tables were animated groups of happy color; and, if there was another world outside, of vice and sin and need, no hint of such a world was suggested by the surroundings of this party of pleasure-seekers.
Yet there was a cloud on the face of the mistress of all this gayety. Mrs. Carlton herself was evidently disturbed and unhappy. Even her accustomed habit of self-control, that mask which society often compels its slaves to wear, could not conceal her real feelings.
"What is the matter, Louise?" asked one of her friends, Mrs. Lynde, as she stopped by the hostess near the staircase; "are you ill?"
"No, but I'm worried about Inez and her father. A telegram just came, saying they would be here on the one-o'clock train. Of course I feel badly about Claude and all that. It seems almost unfortunate that the party should come so soon after, and all this other——. I feel a little nervous about it; but of course I could not foresee events."
"Of course not. You owe something to society. This will be the event of the season."
"Do you think so?" Mrs. Carlton spoke anxiously, but her face lighted up with the selfish pleasure of a woman who has reached a point where the one great object of her life is to win the distinction of surpassing all other society leaders in social ways.
"There is no doubt of it. See if The Sunday Caterer does not say so." And Mrs. Lynde passed into the next room.
Mrs. Carlton looked pleased; and, as she mingled with the young people, her face seemed to lose its anxious look.