XII
MIXED RENDEZVOUS
EVERYWHERE at the “party” Morris and Gorgas were naturally together. They made such a perfect tennis team that each got to know instinctively what the other was thinking. Scraps of private pass-words and codes flashed back and forth, references to games and experiences they had in common. He was always being called upon to work at setting up chairs or untying ribbons or fastening up a fallen lantern.
“Edwin,” she would turn. “Take a look at my back hair, will you? Isn’t that hair-pin tumbling out?”
He would inspect critically and put the offending member into shape, like a familiar brother.
“Don’t forget the bonbons,” she would call after him, as he hurried about preparing things, like one of the family. “They’re where you put them—on the top shelf in the pantry, you know.”
At supper the cake was cut and each candle blown out with a rhymed wish. Gorgas had arranged the seating with Blynn on one side and Morris on the other. With Morris she squabbled playfully like a child, but to Blynn she turned an impish womanly mien.
“Take your elbows off the table, Eddie,” she pretended to give little sisterly slaps. “Where are your company manners?”
To Blynn she would turn the next minute, and mimic a lady dining out.
“The plans for this winter’s opera are stupid; don’t you think? Nothing but Wahgner—we’re getting our share of Wahgner—and the old Fausts and Carmens and Trovatores. That new opera of Puccini is already stale in Vienna, and we haven’t heard even excerpts in the orchestra. It’s like a stage given up to continuous Uncle Tom’s Cabins.”
Another time she came at him with the intonation of a gushing old lady. “How int’r’sting!” she beamed suddenly at one of his remarks about the Academy exhibition, a topic she had forced on him. “Have you seen the Cyclorahma of Gettysburg? They say it is re-ally thrill-ling. Quite the illusion of distance, you know. One ought to go.”