Hermia Challoner, who was visiting Caroline Anstell, joined feverishly in these pursuits, glad of the opportunity they afforded her of relief from her personal problems. There were some of her intimates here in the neighborhood, but she found greater security in the society of an older set of whom she had seen little in town and in the pleasure of picking up the loose ends of these acquaintanceships she managed to forget, at least temporarily, her sword of Damocles. Olga Tcherny was one of Mrs. Berkeley Hammond's house guests, but she had not been in evidence on either of the occasions when Hermia had called. There was some excitement over an evening which Mrs. Hammond was planning to take place in the country during the latter days of Lent. The invitations were noncommittal and merely mentioned the date and hour, but it was understood that "everyone" was to be there, and that an entertainment a little out of the ordinary was to be provided.
It was, therefore, with a pleasurable anticipation that Hermia got down from the Anstell's machine on the appointed evening, and followed her party into the great house. The rooms were comfortably filled, but not crowded, and it seemed that the women had done their best to add their share to the merely decorative requirements of the occasion. The ball-room lights shimmered softly on the rich tissues of their costumes, and caught in the facets of the jewels on their bared shoulders. Society was at its best, upon its good behavior, patiently eking out the few short days that remained to it of the penitential season. Hermia managed to elude the watchful Trevelyan and entered the ball-room with Beatrice Coddington and Caroline Anstell. Just inside she found herself face to face with the Countess Tcherny. She would have passed on, but Olga was not to be denied.
"So glad to see you, Hermia, dear," she purred, her eyes lighting.
"It's really dreadfully unlucky how seldom we've met this winter.
You're a little thinner, aren't you? But it becomes you awfully."
"Thanks," said Hermia. "I'm quite well."
"I hope you'll like the play, you know I—" and she whispered. "Nobody knows—I wrote it."
"Oh, really," Hermia smiled coolly. "I hope it's quite moral."
"Oh, you must judge for yourself," said Olga, and disappeared.
The men, having searched the premises vainly for the bridge tables, resigned themselves to the inevitable and drifted by twos and threes into the ball-room, where they melted into the gay company which was not seated, or stood along the back and side walls, making a somber background for the splendid plumage of their dinner-partners.
"Tableaux-vivants, for a dollar!" said Archie Westcott in bored desperation.
"Oh, rot!" blurted out Crosby Downs in contempt. "What's the use?
They'll be havin' Mrs. Jarley's waxworks next—"