About ten days after the Mineola outing he was seated at his desk, opening the morning's mail. Two letters caught his eye. One, from Marjorie Armstrong, supplemented Mr. Armstrong's invitation to the two Fontaines to attend a week-end party in the Armstrong's Long Island home. The other was a note from Cornelia, reading:
"Lothario, remember your appointment with us this evening. We shall sup al fresco in the Japanese pagoda on the Lorillard roof—Araminta, Hercules and you will be the guests of honor. Only the chosen few are invited: Lydia, Charlotte, Robert and the invisible Pryor. A special attraction has been provided after supper—if indeed you need an attraction other than the piteous spectacle of Araminta pining away for you.
Cornelia.
This operatic reminder was much more welcome to Claude than Marjorie's frigid message. Cornelia's latest party—parties trod on one another's heels in the model tenements—was in celebration of Janet's admission to the society of the Outlaws. Everybody counted on Claude to be the bright particular meteor of the occasion. Yet how was he to follow his natural inclination without offending his father, to say nothing of Colonel Armstrong and Marjorie?
He turned over a volume of Muther's History of Painting and, while staring vacantly into its pages, raked his mind for a diplomatic escape from attendance at the Armstrongs' party. He was still far from successful, when his father approached to transact a little business. This settled, Claude referred to a Van Gogh he had lately bought for $5,000. Mr. Fontaine's face puckered quizzically.
"You are worse than the prodigal son," he said. "That young man squandered his patrimony on real extravagances, while you fritter yours away on unreal mockeries."
"Did you look at it, father?"
"Bless my soul, no. Its mere presence in the house is enough to upset me. As soon as I learned of its arrival, I looked at a copy of Ruisdael's "Mill" for ten minutes to steady my nerves. Whenever I hear of one of your modern pictures, I steal comfort from an ancient one."
"But you can't judge a picture without seeing it," remonstrated Claude.
"My boy, you once induced me to spend ten minutes at a Matisse exhibition in Stieglitz's Little Secession Gallery. What I saw there was one horrible libel on humanity after another. That will last me a lifetime, thank you."