“Thank you,” murmured Mrs Bankton. They bowed slightly to each other and parted. Mrs Stevanson watched Mrs Bankton as she walked across the room with her party. She looked very exotic in a short black lace dress and a red rose in her hair. What slim ankles, thought Mrs Stevanson disagreeably, thinking of her own heavy legs, practical legs one artist had told her, voluptuous legs an even better artist had said.
Mrs Stevanson turned, setting a smile on her lips. She faced the largest of all the groups: over twenty people talking all at once to each other. Holding her breasts high she approached them and, as she was recognized, their voices lowered and smiles appeared all about her and she was accepted into the center of the group and there devoured.
Robert Holton was received by a butler. His coat was taken with ceremony and he was moved easily out of the black marble foyer into the drawing room.
He had never visited Mrs Stevanson in her New York apartment. He was greatly impressed and he tried to retain a mental image of what he saw: he was constructing a dream world and such an apartment might be material for it.
The drawing room was large, formal and very light. Three chandeliers hung from the high ceiling. The walls were paneled in white wood with gold-leaf decorations, like the palace at Versailles. Paintings hung at regular intervals about the room: portraits mostly, portraits of Mrs Stevanson. There was one large painting of a countryside which Robert Holton could tell immediately was done by Rembrandt or someone like him.
The floor was thickly carpeted and tables and formal chairs furnished the room. A few people sat; most of them, however, preferred to stand, to move about gracefully, searching.
He stood blinking in the light, drugged by the high noise of voices, hypnotized by the odor of many flowers drenched over the women who stood talking to men.
He walked slowly, uncertainly toward the center of the room. He knew no one in the room. He looked for familiar faces, though; there were none. Then he saw Mrs Stevanson and he walked toward her. She looked at him and he could tell she was puzzled. Then she recognized him; she came toward him and they met beneath a portrait of her holding lilies.
“You’re little Bob Holton, aren’t you?” A strange description, he thought.