“I should love white hair with the dress,” said Drew thoughtfully. “But not the green. I prefer to wear a small jacquette of black velvet lined with red. Make my lips the same shade as the lining.”
“Oh!” cried Florabelle. “You shall be a dream!” And he set to work.
Drew sat quietly, continually admiring himself in the mirror—an occasional turn of the lip or a raised eyebrow showing approval—amazed with each glance at the artistry of the man who was transforming him.
Florabelle talked incessantly, constantly gesturing until Madame’s coiffure was finished.
“Ah, Drewena!” now cried the little hairdresser. “You are complete—so perfect!” he exclaimed delightedly, finishing off with a touch of perfume upon the eyebrows and behind the lobes of Drew’s ears.
Drewena walked slowly through the drawing room and critically observed the fold of the draperies. It was just before twilight and through a high, oval window crested with stained glass, she idly watched the towers below her. There were tears in her eyes. The light became softer, barely touching now the throats of the doves which nested in the eaveless pinnacles, subduing the irregular flash against their wings. Their silent, ever-changing motion somehow caused her to think of Martin; and the recollection of the mannerisms of her friend—that isolate, strange night in the cocktail lounge—his actions there, sometimes gentle, but more times cruel, made Drewena close her eyes. Why these tears?—like those of a younger passion—full of the same anxiety, the same dull anger at enslavement and desire to escape! She looked into the east, formed her lips into a smile and turned away. Tying her white satin robe more closely about her waist, Drewena sat down at the piano, one slim, white leg against the casing of deep ivory. On each end of the piano was a tall cathedral taper, lighted. The irradiance was vague under her hands as she improvised. The melody was reminiscent of Chopin, and again of Debussy. Drewena consciously built a theme upon their lovely chords, and smiled to herself as she thought of the semblance of originality attained by other contemporary plagiarists. As she continued to improvise, Patsy, known as “Pat” on more sober days, entered the drawing room.
An “English” butler, whose father had been Irish, Patsy was carrying a small bouquet of black lilies brought from the Malay peninsula at great trouble by Drew’s florist. Devoid of her usual attire, Patsy was somewhat ridiculous. Her concave nose and forehead where the toupee failed to hide the round, bald skull, gave her a strange type of “swish.” Her upper teeth sagged in the back when she talked, and her bulbous lips had the appearance of an aging tomato. She wore a little “how-de-do!” of white lace upon her wig which had become entwined in it. A single wart of considerable size pushed through the tiny cap which fell at intervals over her nose for lack of better support. Her black silk skirt was short, showing the bony protuberance of her knee where once, in a moment of folly, she had mounted a horse and was promptly unseated, bruised and flattened. Her blouse was full, barely concealing two lemons she had taken from the icebox. Altogether, with her wide grin and unhappy form she was seemingly the most pathetic of creatures. But when Drewena languidly motioned for silence while she played on, there was an amused understanding between the servant and mistress as Patsy adjusted the flowers on one corner of a table where they would catch the reflection of their darkness in a tall mirror whose frame was a wreath of golden doves in flight.
In Deane’s living room, Martin stood by the divan examining a long-trained evening gown of canary yellow. Its pale satin sheen in the lamplight was unusually luminous against the blur of the couch. Martin spoke earnestly.
“But I don’t understand, Deane. A guest can’t be just an observer at one of these private affairs. I’d be clumsy. I wouldn’t fit in and I don’t see why you want me to go.”
There was a perverse light in Deane’s eyes. She was thinking strangely. She wondered: Is he sure, really sure he won’t fit in? But aloud she said, “Drew invited you and that is sufficient reason.”