His long dark face suggested the cynical, the mysterious, the morose. But his steel-blue eyes were now, as always, searching, with the evergreen hope of finding the consummate woman, which proves him really romantic. That he found her in a New York first-night audience proves him a character in fiction.
II
She sat two seats ahead of him. After the first act, she rose to her feet, turned toward him and, with her opera glasses, swept the house.
“European,” Clavering clicked. “All of them are—these sweepers and scrubwomen.”
The columnist spoke. The man took a second look—and saw that Venus rising from the sea had nothing on her (emphasis on her, please!)—the most exquisitely beautiful woman he had ever seen—the only authentic consummate woman, indubitably.
Clavering’s nerves rippled, but the man next to him—old Dinwiddie, swell, suave and sixty—had an apoplectic fit. His eyes bulged. His lips gibbered.
“It’s a ghost—Mary Ogden—belle of New York forty-five years ago, when I was a kid—married Count Zattiany—Hungarian—never been back since——”
“Her daughter, of course,” suggested Clavering.
“Never had any—to speak of—but that’s it—must be—one of the unmentionables—she was a gay one—little liaison now and then—relished by the best of men——”