“My Lord! I’ve met dozens like him. Just a nice, harmless little grafter. You’ll find them in every hotel in the city. My dear child, I know men mighty well. I’ve had experience!”
Then, to Frankie’s indescribable relief, she left the topic of Lionel and began a history of her own life, with particular emphasis on her suitors. Her father had been a “Cattle King,” she told her, in all seriousness, a millionaire. She had been brought up on a ranch, and then sent to school in the East, to “finish.”
“The best school in New York,” she said. “Dad had a hard time to get me in. But I hated it. I had a great deal of talent for drawing, so I just walked out of the school and got a studio in Washington Square, and plunged right in. I got lots of work from the start, fashions and society sketches. Popper was tickled to death. He said he’d double every cent I made, and he did. He likes independence. But I gave that all up when I got married. I’ve taken up dancing. I’ve got a regular gift for it. I could go on the stage to-morrow if I wanted. I’ve had offers from the big managers.”
The men came in then, and she offered an exhibition.
“I’ll show you the dance I’m going to do in the Fresh Air Fund Bazaar. You play, Li; go over this music while I get ready,” and she disappeared for a long time.
Lionel sat down at the piano and began obediently to try the music she had handed him; a sensual, banal thing, called new, but very reminiscent. He turned his head to smile at Frankie, and then gave his attention to the music, innocently satisfied with the answering smile he had had from her. The light from the lamp shone on his sleek head; he looked so young, so very slim, so fragile and well-bred; her heart ached for him in his unconscious shame. Of course, of course, he didn’t realise! She no more despised him than a mother despises a greedy child.
Julie came back in a costume which completed Frankie’s nightmare of misery and shame. She called it Hindu. Her slim legs and feet were bare, and her body so gauzily covered.... Frances involuntarily glanced at her husband, but he was staring up at the smoke rings he was blowing.
Her dancing was good—quite beautiful. But Frances was not an artist, not an æsthete; she was something of a prig and very much of a Defoe. A little—a tiny bit more of either in her nature would have turned the balance and sent her to her feet in terrible indignation. However, she was able to endure the exhibition with apparent coolness, watched the half-naked Julie twisting supplely before Lionel’s eyes without a visible trace of what she felt.
But how immeasurably glad she was to get away!
“Please send away the taxi,” she asked Lionel. “I’d like to walk a little way. And talk to you.”