She laid her hand on the spot where she supposed this organ to be, and added, without crediting the epigram to Cornelia who had originated it:
"That's all brain, too!"
Everybody laughed, Robert no less heartily than his neighbors. Everybody, that is, save Charlotte Beecher, whose sharp glance at Mazie softened to tenderness as it swept on towards Robert.
The second person to fascinate Janet was a youngish woman in a Syrian dress of many boldly brilliant color clashes. Contrasts as startling were achieved by her coal black hair, her pale olive skin, and the gorgeous green pendants attached to her ears. She had the barbaric picturesqueness of a White African Queen straight out of Rider Haggard, and about as much credibility. But she posed with unlimited self-confidence.
So speculated Janet. The next moment she reminded herself of the necessity of keeping an eye (and perhaps a string) on Robert Lloyd.
But he was nowhere to be seen. In his usual insidious fashion, he had taken French leave while the circle of spectators was absorbed in the ritual of weaving gossip amongst themselves or blessing Miss Beecher's next putty statuette with lavish adjectives and exclamations.
His disappearance piqued Janet. But the exhilaration caused by all the enchantments of the ball and all the thrills of Claude's gallantry and charm, did not permit her to allow any one emotion more than a fleeting hospitality.
Claude watched his chance of enticing her to another novelty. On the way, she begged him to enlighten her about the people she had just met.
"Tell me all about the sculptress and about the Rider Haggard lady with the earrings," she said.
Claude explained that these ladies were both considered freaks even among the Outlaws: Charlotte Beecher, because she was an heiress who wore a working girl's clothes and toiled harder with the sculptor's chisel than a day laborer with a pickaxe; Lydia Morrow, not so much because she had a flair for spectacular dresses, Leon Bakst colors and startling jewelry, as because her authorship of half a dozen best sellers had given her almost unlimited means to gratify these vagaries.