Anne’s “studio-warming” strengthened the conviction. Mrs. Clephane had not been allowed to see the studio; Anne and Nollie and Joe Tresselton, for a breathless week, had locked themselves in with nails and hammers and pots of paint, sealing their ears against all questioning. Then one afternoon the doors were opened, and Kate, coming out of the winter twilight, found herself in a great half-lit room with a single wide window overlooking the reaches of the Sound all jewelled and netted with lights, the fairy span of the Brooklyn Bridge, and the dark roof-forest of the intervening city. It all seemed strangely significant and mysterious in that disguising dusk—full of shadows, distances, invitations. Kate leaned in the window, surprised at this brush of the wings of poetry.
In the room, Anne had had the good taste to let the sense of space prolong itself. It looked more like a great library waiting for its books than a modern studio; as though the girl had measured the distance between that mighty nocturne and her own timid attempts, and wanted the implements of her art to pass unnoticed.
They were sitting—Mrs. Clephane, the Joe Tresseltons and one or two others—about the tea-cups set out at one end of a long oak table, when the door opened and Lilla Gates appeared, tawny and staring, in white furs and big pendulous earrings. She brought with her a mingled smell of cigarettes and Houbigant, and as she stood there, circling the room with her sulky contemptuous gaze, Kate felt a movement of annoyance.
“Why must one forever go on being sorry for Lilla?” she wondered, wincing a little as Anne’s lips touched her cousin’s mauve cheek.
“It was nice of you to come, Lilla.”
“Well—I chucked something bang-up for you,” said Lilla coolly. It was evidently her pride to be perpetually invited, perpetually swamped in a multiplicity of boring engagements. She looked about her again, and then dropped into an armchair. “Mercy—you have cleared the decks!” she remarked. “Ain’t there going to be any more furniture than this?”
“Oh, the furniture’s all outside—and the pictures too,” Anne said, pointing to the great window.
“What—Brooklyn Bridge? Lord!—Oh, but I see: you’ve kept the place clear for dancing. Good girl, Anne! Can I bring in some of my little boys sometimes? Is that a pianola?” she added, with a pounce toward the grand piano in a shadowy corner. “I like this kindergarten,” she pronounced.
Nollie Tresselton laughed. “If you come, Anne won’t let you dance. You’ll all have to sit for her—for hours and hours.”
“Well, we’ll sit between the dances then. Ain’t I going to have a latch-key, Anne?”