Charlie, bold through long acquaintance, asked, “Where are the others?”
Leslie told him, whereupon the young man said “Oh!” and his “Oh” sounded blank, whether because it was apparent to him through her answer that there had been indiscretion in his question, or because he wondered at there being a dinner-party in this house and he not asked to it. Leslie paid no attention, for at that moment the diners were beginning to appear.
The drawing-room had two doors in the same wall: people coming from the dining-room would enter by one of these, while those who came from the street entered by the other, after passing through the small reception-room where they left their things, and the larger reception-room intervening between this and the drawing-room. Charlie Hunt, talking with Mrs. Satterlee, let a casual eye roll away from her middle-aged agreeableness to see who was entering by that different door from the one which had given him passage. Curiosity, pure and simple.
Ah, so. Madame Balm de Brézé, spare, sharp, high-nosed, beaked and clawed like a bird–a picked bird. Very elegant. It was clear to Charlie Hunt why with a dinner to give one should care to secure her and her husband. They looked so fiendishly aristocratic.
38The Felixsons. Naturally. Felixson had to be asked when the guest of honor was a scholar. Mrs. Felixson’s warm brilliancy to-night bore testimony to a good dinner. Abundance of meats and wines always turned her a burning pink. It looked to Charlie like a new frock she was wearing; he did not remember seeing her in it before.
Gideon Hart, the old sculptor. It was his picturesque white hair and beard that people liked to see at their tables, for the old fellow, thought Hunt, was phenomenally a bore. In this case patriotism explained his presence. America quaintly loved his name.
And Cecilia Brown. But was it really Cecilia?... What had she been doing to herself?... Oh. Her hair. Her hair was cropped and curled all over her head like wicked Caracalla’s. That was the fashion in England, he had heard, where she had been spending the summer.
But who was this, at the end of the procession, after Mrs. Foss and Brenda and the consul?
Hunt had a genuine surprise. Gerald Fane.
Now, wherefore Gerald Fane rather than Charlie Hunt?