"Perhaps," assented Fritzie with a prudent pause. "Some men," she went on somewhat vaguely, "get interested, when they are young, in women in general. And afterward never settle down to any one woman, you know."
"I should think that kind of a man would be tiresome."
Fritzie looked at young Mrs. MacBirney somewhat in surprise, but there was nothing in Alice's frank eyes to provoke criticism. They met Fritzie's with an assurance of good-nature that forestalled hostility. Then, too, Fritzie remembered that Mrs. MacBirney was from the West where people speak freely. "Robert is deliberate but not a bit tiresome," was all Fritzie said in answer. "Indeed, he is not communicative."
"I didn't mean in that way," explained Alice. "I should only be afraid a man like that would take himself so seriously."
Fritzie laughed: "He wouldn't know what that meant. You had music at your dinner to-night."
"Lovely music: the Hawaiian singers."
"I was sorry I couldn't be there. They always come out to sing for Robert when they are in the States, and they are always in dreadful financial straits when they get as far from home as this, and he is always making up their deficits. They used to sing at The Towers, from barges on the lake. But The Towers is hardly ever opened nowadays for a function. The music over the water with the house illuminated was simply superb. And the evening winding up with fireworks!" sighed Fritzie in pleasing retrospect.
"There is Robert now," she continued.. "Do you see him? With Mrs. Charles Kimberly. They are devoted. Isn't she a slip? And the daintiest little thing. Robert calls her his little Quakeress--her people were Quakers. She seems lost among the Kimberlys--though Robert isn't quite so tall as his brother, only more muscular and slower."
Robert Kimberly with Imogene on his arm entered from the opposite side of the room and walked across the floor to take her to her husband. His face was darker than that of Charles and heavier eyebrows rendered his expression less alert. Fritzie waved a hand at Imogene, who answered with her fan and greeted Alice.
"And there comes Mrs. Nelson--the pale brunette. Heroic woman, I call her. She has been fighting her advancing weight for ten years. Isn't she trim? Heavens, she ought to be. She lives in Paris half the time and does nothing but dress and flirt."