If applause meant appreciation, he must have been gratified. And, in fact, the tribute was sincere. The hour’s advertising whimsy had been amusing and artistic. Commendatory chatter lifted as the spectators disturbed their chairs.
John Cabot was preoccupied by an analysis of the look seen on the face of the master of ceremonies, a look which had intensified as Seff studied, not so much the piece as the star. Since a certain incidental which the financier had noticed, the elaborate exhibition had become offensive to him.
In the manikin’s small tussle over the adjustment of her petticoat, just when she had been laughing with most abandon, two somethings—gleaming, small yet large in suggestion—had dropped from her eyes and been absorbed by the crêpe.
That she could weep for shame, while successfully playing her frolicsome part, meant a great deal. Many young girls might have wept before entering upon such a career. Most could be imagined as weeping afterward. But to realize and suffer enough for tears in what evidently was an initial step—Although Catherine often had told John that he was losing his sense of humor, nobody could have declared him deficient in vision.
He was recalled to the immediate present by the lifted voice of his wife addressing Seff.
“I will give five hundred dollars,” she was saying, “for the set shown on the model. The things are exquisite and the charity deserves response.”
“My dear Mrs. Cabot!” The shopman over-accented that familiarity which the lofty seem so to appreciate from traffic-policemen, waiters, hotel clerks and the like. “The identical set is yours. I thank you from my heart and from the hearts of those orphans of France.”
“I’ll take them with me,” stipulated Catherine. “Have the box put in my car, please. And, Seff, I am in something of a hurry.”
The crispness of her conclusion was like frost on a sunlit window pane. The merchant showed himself nipped by it.
“I’ll attend to your order at once, Mrs. Cabot.”