"There's no masquerade on, is there?" I asked.
"Oh, no—we all wear what we please, that's all. Don't you like it?" Hallie asked.
Generally there appeared the trim short skirt I had noticed as so appropriate on shipboard; here and there a sort of Florentine gown, long, richly damasked; sometimes a Greekish flow of drapery; the men mostly knickerbockered. I couldn't deny that it was pleasant to the eye, but it worried me a little none the less.
"There's no hurry, John," said Nellie, always unobtrusively watching me. "Some things you'll just have to get used to."
"Before I wholly accept this sudden new brother," I presently suggested, "I'd like to know his name."
"Montrose—Owen Montrose, at your service," he said, bowing his fine head. "Also Jerrold Montrose—and Hallie Robertson!"
"Dear, dear!" I protested. "So it's come to that, has it?"
"It's come to that—and we still love each other!" Nellie cheerfully agreed. "But it isn't final. There's a strong movement on foot to drop hereditary names altogether."
I groaned. "In the name of common humanity, don't tell me anything worse than you have now!"
Hallie's apartment was in a big building, far uptown, overlooking the Hudson.