Bylant had never made an effort to repress the mobile play of his features and looked less than his thirty-eight years, in spite of the fact that he was a bright light at sophisticate parties when they did not interfere with his work. His long nose was sharp and investigating, his mouth would have been sensuous but for an almost rigid firmness of the lower lip, and his lively gray eyes sparkled with tolerance and good-humor. He wore an infinitesimal mustache and a short pointed beard.
He was always meticulously groomed and radiated good health; his large firm hands were as carefully tended as a fastidious woman’s, although he was as masculine as Geoffrey Pelham and something of an athlete. Gita, who, in her worst days, had polished her nails, compared the hands of the two men. Dr. Pelham’s were long and sensitive and flexible, but no doubt he thought it sufficient to keep them clean and disinfected and wasted no time on a buffer.
Gita had arrived early by request, spent half an hour in Elsie’s bedroom, and listened none too patiently to a brief biography of the distinguished guest. “I’ve not seen so very much of him, considering he’s a great friend of my brother,” Elsie had rattled on, “but he always calls when he comes to Atlantic City; sometimes drops in on me at the office. And I’ve met him at a few parties in New York. He’s known from the first that I am the occasional Elizabeth Pelham of the magazines. Shortly after my début as ‘E. B.’ he introduced me to Suzan Forbes, who took me firmly by the hand and steered me into the haven of the Lucy Stone League, where cognominal transitions from father to husband are sternly tabu. Do I look all right?”
Gita had assured her she looked lovely, and they had gone downstairs arm in arm.
Aloof and apparently absorbed in her “Maryland chicken,” she wondered apprehensively if Bylant were in love with Elsie and decided he was not. His eyes were merely bright with interest as they discussed current tendencies and sophisticate personalities. He had darted a curious glance at herself once or twice in the parlor, and there had been a sudden glow in his eyes when they were introduced that made her stiffen her spine—that unfailing thermometer of her moods—but he had favored her with his notice no further.
At this point it occurred to her that she was acting like a “cub.” In San Francisco, where she had been invited to dinners by girls who both liked and pitied her, eccentricities were condoned and they had expected no help at her hands. Tonight she was not only the guest of honor but the only other girl present, and—she made a wild dive among the shades of her ancestors—she was Miss Carteret of Carteret Manor. She may have accepted the rôle under protest but accepted it she had, and to behave like a sulky outlaw and cast a shade over the feast would no longer be tolerated. Elsie loved her and if she were disappointed would give no sign, but Gita imagined with a shudder the cold disapproval of Mrs. Pleyden if she sat like a sphinx at her table with a picked man on either side to entertain. She might as well begin now.
She turned to Dr. Pelham and asked a tentative question, imbecile, she admitted, but she hardly could be expected to scintillate.
“Are you glad to be home, to have seen the last of the West?”
Pelham smiled slightly. “Oh, I rather liked Butte.”
“Mining town, isn’t it?”