A little later as he moved slowly amid the crush of vehicles in Fifth Avenue, it occurred to him that since Perry was so agreeably engaged, he might himself come in for a share of Gerty's society, and stopping before her door, he sent up a request that she would come with him for a short quick run up Riverside. Next to Laura herself he felt that he preferred Gerty because he knew that she would enter into a lively banter upon the subject that filled his thoughts, and his emotion was so fresh that there was a piquant charm in her sprightly allusion to the mere fact of its existence. When she came down at the end of a few minutes, wearing her long tan motoring coat and a fluttering white chiffon veil, he felt a quick impatience of the first casual phrases with which she leaned back in the car and settled her hanging draperies about her.
"Go as fast as you like," he said to the chauffeur, and then reaching into his pocket, he drew out his glasses and offered her a pair.
She shook her head, with an indignant gesture of refusal. "If I perish I perish, but I won't perish hideously!" she exclaimed.
With a laugh he slipped the elastic over his cap. "What a bore it must be always to keep beautiful," he remarked. "You can't imagine the positive delight there is in the freedom of ugliness."
"I dare say." She had turned her head to look at a passing carriage, and he saw the lovely delicacy of her profile through the blown transparent folds of her veil. "I shall know it some day," she added presently, "for after I've safely passed my fiftieth birthday, I mean never to look into a glass again. Then I'll break my mirrors and be really happy."
"No, you won't, my dear cousin," he rejoined, "for you'll continue to see yourself in Perry's eyes."
He watched with a sensation of pleasure the graceful shrug of her shoulders under her shapeless coat.
"Oh, there's no chance of that," she assured him; "he is always in them himself?"
The vague curiosity in his thoughts took form suddenly in words. "Where's he now, by the way, do you know?"
Her musical, empty laugh was as perfect as the indifferent glance she gave him. "Enjoying himself, I hope," she answered. "He hung around me until I sent him out in the sheer desperation of weariness."