Julia had never been able to say just where his elusive intimacy verged on presumption. Feeling irritated and helpless and sweetly sorry for herself, she lowered her lids.
"My—dear!" Mrs. Hurst kissed Julia. "How sweet you look! How do you do, Mr. Farley? It was nice of you to let Julia persuade you to come to us. We really feel you are showing your confidence in us. Julia, dear girl, tells me you have as much of an aversion to parties as Charles and I have. This will be a homely evening. Mr. and Mrs. Wilson are here, and there is a young Hindoo who has been giving some charming talks at the Settlement House. He speaks very poor English but he's so interested in America. He's only become acquainted with a few American women. I want him to meet Julia. I think he'll amuse her too." Mrs. Hurst's short little person was draped in a black lace robe embroidered with jet. She squinted when she smiled. Minute creases appeared about her bright eyes. Her expression was gentle and deceitful. Her arms, protruding from her sleeve draperies, were thin, and their movements weak. Her wedding ring and one large diamond-encircled turquoise hung loosely on the third finger of her left hand. Her hands were meager and showed that her bones were very small and delicate. About her hollow throat she wore a black velvet band, and her cheeks, no longer firm, were, nevertheless, childishly full above it. Though she said nothing that justified it, one felt in her a sort of affectionate malice toward those with whom she spoke. In her flattering acknowledgment of Julia's appearance there was something insidiously contemptuous. "Come away with me, child, and we'll dispose of that hat. Williams!" She turned to the Negro servant whom Mr. Hurst had intercepted at the door. She nodded toward Mr. Farley. The Negro went forward obsequiously.
"Yes, Williams, take Mr. Farley's hat," Mr. Hurst said. Then, in humorous confidence, sotto voce, "How about a drink, Farley? My wife has that young Hindoo here. This is likely to be a dry intellectual evening. That may suit you, but I have to resort to first aid. Want to talk to you about that fishing trip. Come on to my den with me."
Shortly after this, Julia, descending the stairs with her hostess, found Laurence and Mr. Hurst in the hall again. Laurence, his lips twisted disagreeably, was listening with polite but irritating quiescence to Mr. Hurst's incessant high-pitched talk. Mr. Hurst, who had been surreptitiously glancing toward the shadowy staircase that hung above his guest's head, was quick to observe the approach of the women. He had always found fault with what he considered to be Julia's coldness, but he admired her tall figure and her fine shoulders. "Hello, hello! Here they are!"
"Charles!" Mrs. Hurst was whimsically disapproving. "Why haven't you taken Mr. Farley in to meet our guests? You are an erratic host."
Mr. Hurst moved forward. "That's all right! That's all right! Farley and I had some strategic confidences. You take him off and show him your Hindoo. I want Mrs. Farley to come out and see my rose garden, out in the court. I'm going to have a few minutes alone with her before you conduct her to the higher spheres and leave me struggling in my natural earthly environment. I won't be robbed of a little tête-à-tête with a pretty woman, just because there's an Oriental gentleman in the house who can tell her all about her astral body. Did you ever see your astral body, Mrs. Farley?"
"Boo!" Mrs. Hurst waved him off and pushed Julia toward him. "Go on, if she has patience with you. But mind you only keep her there a moment. I've told Mr. Vakanda she was coming and I'm sure he's already uneasy. Rose garden, indeed! It's quite dark, Charles! Come, Mr. Farley. Put this scarf about you, dear." She took a scarf up and threw it around Julia's shoulders.
"Ta-ta!" Mr. Hurst came confidently to Julia, and they walked out together across a glass-enclosed veranda that was brilliantly lit. Descending a few steps they were among the roses. "Autumn roses," said Mr. Hurst. The bushes drooped in vague masses about them. Here and there a blossom made a pale spot among the obscure leaves. Where the glow from the veranda stretched along the paths, the grass showed like a blue mist over the earth, and clusters of foliage had a carven look. The dark wall of the next house, in which the lighted windows were like wounds, towered above them. Over it hung the black sky covered with an infinite flashing dust of stars. Julia's face was in shadow, but her hair glistened on the white nape of her neck where the black lace scarf had fallen away.
Mr. Hurst had made a large sum of money from small beginnings. He would have enjoyed in peace the sense of power it gave him, and the indulgence in fine wines and foods and expensive surroundings for which he lived, but his wife prevented it. He had married her when they were both young and impecunious. She had been a school teacher in a mid-western city. She had managed to convince him that in marrying him she conferred an honor upon him, and she succeeded now in making him feel out of place and absurd in the environment which his efforts had created, which she, however, turned to her own use. Instead of flaunting his success in boastful generosity, according to his inclination, he found himself compelled to deprecate it. He had a secret conviction that he was a man to be reckoned with, but openly, and especially before his wife's friends, he ridiculed himself, perpetrating laborious and repetitious jokes at his own expense, just as she ridiculed him when they were alone.
Mrs. Hurst was chiefly interested in what she considered culture, and in welfare work, and among her acquaintances referred to her husband affectionately as if he were a child. She had no connection which would give her the entrée to socially exclusive circles, and she was wise enough not to attempt pretenses which it would have been impossible for her to sustain. Her husband's friends were mostly selfmade and newly rich. She was affable to them but maintained toward them a mild but superior reserve. She expressed tolerantly her contempt of social ostentation and suggested that among Mr. Hurst's play-fellows she was condescending from her more vital and intellectual pursuits. Men who drank and played golf or poker between the hours of business considered her "brainy," but "a damned nice woman". She was generous to impecunious celebrities of whom she had been told to expect success. On one occasion when she and Mr. Hurst were sailing for England she was photographed on shipboard in the company of a popular novelist. The picture of the novelist, showing Mrs. Hurst beside him in expensive furs, appeared in a woman's magazine. She had never seen the man since, but she always referred to him as "a charming person". She was frequently called upon to conduct "drives" for charity funds. At masquerade balls organized for similar purposes her name appeared with others better known and she could honestly claim acquaintance with women whose frivolous occupations she professed to despise. She was an assiduous attendant at concerts and the public lectures which were given from time to time by men of letters or exponents of the arts. References to sex annoyed her. The vagueness of her aspirations sometimes led her into fits of depression and discouragement, but she had a small crabbed pride that prevented her from allowing any one—least of all, perhaps, her husband—to see what she felt. She was conscientiously attentive to children, but actually bored by them. She seldom thought of her own childhood, and she sentimentalized her past only when she reflected on her early girlhood and the instinctive longing for withheld refinements which had led her away from a sordid uncultured home into the profession of a teacher. Often her husband irritated her almost uncontrollably, but she never admitted that the moods he aroused in her had any significance. She was ashamed of him and called the feeling by other names.