Indeed, within a second or two, Claude and Janet were chatting about a good many matters which did not bear in the remotest way upon this magnetizing spark. Still, they chatted with an excited recklessness, and as if their essences were held together by a subtle force, a force whose irresistible urgency they would neither have dared to acknowledge nor wished to dispute.
V
Steeped in the enjoyment of the moment, Janet hardly noticed that Robert had tacitly resigned his watchful care of her to Claude Fontaine. She began to neglect her fortune telling duties as one result of this displacement, for Claude's appropriation of her time grew as his visits became more frequent. Nor did he share her compunction on this score. Far from doing so, he cajoled her into dancing with him again and again. In the intervals, he escorted her from one end of the reception floor to the other, introducing her to the groups he considered worth while. Thus she shared (much more fully than she desired to) the curiosity which his brilliant presence excited and the gossip which it was everywhere a signal for.
"Here's an interesting stunt," said Claude to his partner.
He indicated a group of young people amongst whom she instantly recognized Robert and Mazie. Two others claimed her attention. In the center of the group was a young woman with a high color and a very energetic manner, who had adopted an unusual plan for swelling the box office receipts. She was making impromptu busts in putty of all who could afford a contribution, no reasonable sum being refused.
When Claude and Janet came up, the sculptress had just finished modelling a head of Robert; and a remarkably spirited likeness it was. Robert was greatly taken with it, but his satisfaction was mild beside that of the artist, who handled the fragile image as though it were the apple of her eye.
Two thoughts struck Janet. One was that Charlotte Beecher's fuss over the statuette of Robert Lloyd was excessive. The other was that she now, for the first time, missed the living model. But this discovery, as well as her criticism of the sculptress, was promptly swallowed up in the kaleidoscopic whirl of meeting still other characters belonging to the strange new society into which she had been flung.
Nevertheless, she contrived to recall Robert to her side.
"What a wonderful head Robert has!" Miss Beecher was rhapsodizing, while she glanced sentimentally from the statue to the living model. "I declare, it's all brain."
"It sure is!" echoed Mazie, mockingly. "But it's not a patch on his wonderful heart."