"I have it," said the lady suddenly. "The Country Club! I see in the society column that everything nowadays is going on at the Country Club. We'll have to join that."
"I believe," interposed Joan, flushing, "that people have to be invited to join a club, don't they, Father?"
"All right—We'll be invited. Won't we, Dickums?" said the bride, with a ravishing smile in the Major's direction.
He rose to the occasion. "Certainly, my love," he replied.
And they were invited. At any rate, a week or two later found the Darcy family dining alone at the Country Club, among various other little table groups, all of whom seemed to know each other intimately.
To be in and not of this friendly assemblage filled Joan with that most miserable of all sensations, crowd-loneliness. Even the Major wore a rather fixed and nervous smile, and mentioned to his wife and daughter at intervals that Louisville society had changed very much since he used to frequent it. Only Effie May seemed quite unperturbed, gazing about her smilingly, and tapping her slippered foot, and nodding her head in time to the music; meeting the curious glances which strayed in their direction with a frank interest of her own which might have seemed bold if it were not so like a pleased child's.
Joan, intercepting one or two of these glances, looked her step-mother over critically, and to her relief found her less flamboyant than usual. She was dressed in white—"Handsome white, not girly-girly muslin like yours. I'm too stout for that," she had said wisely to Joan—The girl reflected that it is difficult to look vulgar in white. Mrs. Darcy was not appreciably different in appearance from many another rather overdressed matron there, even in the matter of rouge and touched-up hair.
As for her father—Richard Darcy would have been a distinguished figure in any assemblage he chose to enter, with his six feet of gallantly carried avoirdupois, his finely modeled head, his gray mustache and imperial concealing a mouth that might otherwise have left something to be desired. He wore that night—and wore well—clothes of the palest gray flannel, with socks and buckskin shoes to match, and a gray stripe in his white tie, and a gray monogram embroidered upon the exquisite cambric of his handkerchief. This was the parent who a few weeks ago she had associated irrevocably in her mind with spots and frayed collars! She found herself wishing that her mother could see him now—she would be so proud of him!...
To her own appearance Joan gave little consideration. She had discovered that the great advantage of good clothes is that you no longer have to think about them. She was quite unaware of the value in contrasts she afforded—her small, dark, smoothly combed head lifted proudly on its long neck, the awkward grace of her thin young body, the pale oval of her face lit by surprisingly vivid eyes, of the sort that are dreamy and shadowed until excitement turns them into soft blue fire. She was excited that night, a little frightened. She did not smile at all, but there was that about her lips—sensitive, wistful, faintly drooping—that made more than one person who glanced at the Darcy table wonder what the smile would be like if it came.
When the dancing began, Effie May's exuberance could no longer contain itself.