"My head has ached all day."
"It will do your head good. Come on. I told her we were coming."
CHAPTER XV
They found a lively party at the Nelsons'. Guyot was there, with Lambert, thick-lipped and voluble. Dora Morgan with Doane and Cready Hamilton had come, worn and bedraggled, from a New England motoring trip. Dora, still quite hoarse, was singing a music-hall song when the MacBirneys entered the room.
She stopped. "My ears are crazy to-night--I can't sing," she complained, responding to Alice's greeting. "I feel as if there were a motor in my head. Tired? Oh, no, not a bit. But the dust!" Her smile died and her brows rose till her pretty eyes shone full. She threw her expiring energy into two husky words: "Something fierce!"
Dolly and her husband with Imogene and Charles had responded to Lottie's invitation, and Robert Kimberly came later with Fritzie Venable. Dolly greeted Alice with apologies. "I am here," she admitted with untroubled contempt, "but not present. I wanted to see what Lambert looks like. We hear so much about his discoveries. Robert doesn't think much of them."
Mrs. Nelson, languidly composed, led MacBirney to the men who were in an alcove off the music room. Near them sat Robert Kimberly talking to Imogene. Dora could not be coaxed to sing again. But the hostess meant to force the fighting for a good time. Dora joined the men and Guyot, under Nelson's wing, came over to meet Alice, who had taken refuge with Dolly. At a time when the groups were changing, Nelson brought Lambert over. But neither Alice nor Dolly made objection when his host took him away again.
Kimberly came after a while with Fritzie to Alice's divan and, standing behind it, tried by conversation and such attraction of manner as he could offer, to interest Alice. He failed to waken any response. She quite understood a woman's refuge from what she wishes to avoid and persevered in being indifferent to every effort.
Kimberly, not slow to perceive, left presently for the party in the dining-room. But even as he walked away, Alice's attitude toward him called to her mind a saying of Fritzie's, that it is not pleasant to be unpleasant to pleasant people, even if it is unpleasant to be pleasant to unpleasant people.
"Were you tired after yesterday's ride?" asked Dolly of Alice.