The two entered laughing, talking, bickering good-naturedly. Kim heard her husband’s jejune plangent voice outside her dressing-room door.
“I’m going to tell your daughter on you, Nola! Yes, I am.”
“I don’t care. He started it.”
Kim looked round at them. Why need they be so horribly high-spirited just to-night? It was like comedy relief in a clumsily written play, put in to make the tragedy seem deeper. Still, this news was hardly tragic. Yet her mother might——
For years, now, Kim Ravenal had shielded her mother; protected her; spoiled her, Magnolia said, almost resentfully.
She stood now with her son-in-law in the cruel glare of the dressing-room lights. Her face was animated, almost flushed. Her fine head rose splendidly from the furred frame of her luxurious coat collar. Her breast and throat were firm and creamy above the square-cut décolletage of her black gown. Her brows looked the blacker and more startling for the wing of white that crossed the black of her straight thick hair. There was about this woman past middle age a breath-taking vitality. Her distinguished young son-in-law appeared rather anæmic in contrast.
“How was the play?” Kim asked, possibly in the hope of changing their ebullient mood.
“Nice production,” said Cameron. “Lunt was flawless. Fontanne’s turned just a shade cute on us. She’d better stop that. Shaw, revived, tastes a little mouldy. Westley yelled. Simonson’s sets were—uh—meticulous I think the word is. . . . And I want to inform you, my dear Mrs. C., that your mama has been a very naughty girl.”
This would never do, thought Kim, her mind on the yellow envelope. She put an arm about her mother. “Kiss me and I’ll forgive you,” she said.
“You don’t know what she’s done.”