“All right.” She caught her hat by the crown and stood up. “What’s the first move? How do I do it?”
“Leave it to me. Just be the flying princess for a time.”
She grinned widely. “Good title for a musical comedy. And I’ll like that rôle well enough.”
CHAPTER X
Eight or ten of the guests were up in Bylant’s rooms playing poker and refreshing themselves at will. Extravagantly as they admired Gita they were a little in awe of her in her own house, and when under her eye assuaged their thirst discreetly. Bylant had a wide bed and a divan, if they were forced to remain for the night, and he could sneak them downstairs in the morning before his wife was awake.
Gita had given several parties during the winter but refused to ask more than forty at a time. She disliked crowded rooms, where the selfish appropriated the chairs and sofas permanently, while the others were forced to stand about or wander. A few always retired to her ark, those who liked to hear themselves talk and two or three who had formed the habit of listening. A mutually interested couple generally migrated to the ecclesiastical chest in the hall. In the large drawing-room and connecting dining-room the rest of the guests sat comfortably, drank the cocktails and whisky and soda passed by the host and gave a divided attention to the spontaneous performances of the livelier members of the company. There was a good deal of music tonight, a diseuse was convulsing and brief, there were impromptu little plays and much staccato talk. One distinguished exponent of bald realism untempered by art, too swiftly susceptible to synthetic gin, stole upstairs early in the evening and appropriated the divan for the night. A dark young actress, famous as a stage adventuress, who barely tolerated any man but her husband and drank nothing stronger than root-beer, curled up in an easy chair and went to sleep; her invariable habit. Polly had steered Dr. Pelham into a corner behind the piano and kept him there, and Elsie, who was helping Gita play hostess, watched her brother out of a corner of her eye. Many celebrities were present: Gora Dwight, a novelist both popular and important; Lee Clavering, whose play had been a Broadway sensation since September; Marian Starr Darsett; De Witt Turner and his wife, Suzan Forbes; Potts Dawes; Max Durand; Fellowes Merton; Helen Vane Baker, of two worlds, and Peter Whiffle.
While a young musical-comedy actress was giving the convolutions of a skirt-dance, spontaneously invented, Gita found an empty chair behind a door and indulged in a yawn. She suddenly felt bored with New York and parties. And clever people could be as monotonous in time as the more stereotyped society to which Mrs. Pleyden had introduced her. What did it all amount to? They went on like this winter after winter and not one of them looked blasé, not even Marian Starr Darsett, who was reputed to be entering upon her hundred-and-ninth love-affair. But they all had some gift, or used their brains otherwise to a definite purpose. Hers was like a whirlpool, careering round and round in circles and to no purpose whatever. The simile stopped at the vortex; she never got as far as that!
Next winter? And next? And next? The prospect was appalling. . . . However, after six months in the country—reactions were automatic. . . . She had arranged for several house-parties—and felt disposed to withdraw the invitations. But that would leave her alone with Eustace. He bored her less than anyone, but if he kept up that ridiculous game she’d explode before they’d been isolated in the manor a week. His “wooing,” tentative so far as became the first stage, had shown him to be possessed of more charm than she had suspected, but she preferred him without it. How could they ever get back to their old relationship when the game was given up as a bad job? She hated make-believe anyway. She was made for realities. . . . Realities? What were they? In this sort of life, anyhow? Perhaps, after all, she’d have been better satisfied with life if she had been forced to take a job in San Francisco.
Although she had had spasms of restlessness and dissatisfaction of late, not to mention certain abrupt flights of imagination, she had felt nothing of the sort when she had stood before her mirror a few hours earlier and put the finishing touches to her toilette. Her gown was white and silver and vastly becoming. She wore all her pearls, and had applied a light touch of powder. But as she sat there behind the door, almost concealed from her guests, she lost all interest in her beauty. Polly was far prettier than she and always looked her most dazzling in red. Tonight she wore a quaint flaming head-dress and little gold curls escaped everywhere. She hadn’t left Pelham’s side for a moment since they entered at nine o’clock, and it was now a quarter to twelve. And he looked anything but bored.
“Why are you hiding, Miss Carteret?” De Witt Turner was looming over her, his great bulk encased in loose tweed. If he possessed evening clothes he never wore them. “Your party is a stunning success as usual. I hope we haven’t tired you out.”