"Oh no, when one belongs to Molly's exalted class or is about to be elevated into it, nothing is secret. I'm quite sure that the society editor of the Herald knows far better than I the names of the hotels in Jamaica we're to frequent."
"Oh! Jamaica! How … how … original!" Mrs. Marshall-Smith cast about her rather desperately for a commendatory adjective.
"Yes, quite so, isn't it?" agreed Morrison. "It's Molly's idea. She is original, you know. It's one of her greatest charms. She didn't want to go to Europe because there is so much to see there, to do. She said she wanted a honeymoon and not a personally conducted trip."
They all laughed again, and Sylvia said: "How like Molly! How clever! Nobody does her thinking for her!"
"The roads in Jamaica are excellent for motoring, too, I hear," added
Morrison. "That's another reason, of course."
Page gave a great laugh. "Well, as Molly's cousin, let me warn you! Molly driving a car in Jamaica will be like Pavlova doing a bacchante on the point of a needle! You'll have to keep a close watch on her to see that she doesn't absentmindedly dash across the island and jump off the bank right on into the ocean."
"Where does F. Morrison, house-furnishing-expert, come in?" asked Mrs.
Marshall-Smith.
"After the wedding, after Jamaica," said Morrison. "We're to come back to New York and for a few months impose on the good nature of Molly's grandfather's household, while we struggle with workmen et al. The Montgomery house on Fifth Avenue, that's shut up for so many years,—ever since the death of Molly's parents,—is the one we've settled on. It's very large, you know. It has possibilities. I have a plan for remodeling it and enlarging it with a large inner court, glass-roofed—something slightly Saracenic about the arches—and what is now a suite of old-fashioned parlors on the north side is to be made into a long gallery. There'll be an excellent light for paintings. I've secured from Duveen a promise for some tapestries I've admired for a long time—Beauvais, not very old, Louis XVII—but excellent in color. Those for the staircase …"
He spoke with no more animation than was his custom, with no more relish than was seemly; his carefully chosen words succeeded each other in their usual exquisite precision, no complacency showed above the surface; his attitude was, as always, composed of precisely the right proportion of dignity and ease; but as he talked, some untarnished instinct in Sylvia shrank away in momentary distaste, the first she had ever felt for him.
Mrs. Marshall-Smith evidently did not at all share this feeling. "Oh, what a house that will be!" she cried, lost in forecasting admiration. "You! with a free hand! A second house of Jacques Coeur!" Sylvia stood up, rather abruptly. "I think I'll go for a walk beside the river," she said, reaching for her parasol.