It was like an entrance on the stage, up the passage and between the watching people, and I don’t think any actress could have done it with more aplomb. In her evening dress she was truly superb—a goddess of a woman with her black hair in lusterless coils and her neck and shoulders as white as curds. Upon that satiny bosom my mother’s pendant rose and fell to even breathings. Whatever anybody else may have felt, the star of the occasion was calm and confident.
Her appearance had so much of the theatrical that it must have made us suddenly see her as the professional, the legitimate object of glances and comments. Nothing else could explain why I—a person of restrained enthusiasms—should have broken into bald compliments. She took them with no more self-consciousness than a performing animal takes the gallery’s applause, smiled slightly, then looked at Roger, the stranger. I did so, too, childishly anxious to see if he admired my protégée. He evidently did, for he was staring with the rest of them, intent, astonished.
Her glance appeared to gather up his tribute as her hands might have gathered flowers thrown to her. He was one of the watching thousands that it was her business to enthrall, his face one of the countless faces that were to gaze up at her from tier upon tier of seats.
When the door shut on the last of them, laughter and good nights diminishing down the stairs, he turned to me with an air that was at once bewildered and accusing.
“Why in heaven’s name didn’t you tell me she was so good-looking?”
“I did and you wouldn’t believe me,” I answered gaily, for I was greatly pleased. It was a little triumph over Roger with his hypercritical taste and his rare approvals.
The next morning I waited anxiously for news. I thought Lizzie would be down early, but the others came before her, dropping in as the morning wore away. With each entrance I grew more uneasy.
Mr. Hazard was first, in a gray sweater.
“Well, she looked great. I wish I could have painted her that way. But—” he tilted his head, his expression grown dubious. “You know, Mrs. Drake, I don’t know one tune from another—but—”
“But what?” I said sharply.