"Just because they are going to a party and meeting their friends and trying to look their best... I don't agree with the Freudian emphasis on the lowest in our natures. I don't think it's a good thing... Anyway civilized people don't let themselves think about those subjects."
"That's what I'm saying... But what they think is just a veneer. Underneath our conscious thoughts and taboos we are over-sexed and anthropophagous savages."
They were walking up a drive bordered by barberry bushes of which the berries stood out scarlet over the greybrown lawn. They scraped the soles of their shoes against the scraper beside the door on the semicircular Colonial porch and found themselves being divested of their hats and overcoats by a maid who gave them numbered checks in return. Then clearing their throats slightly, smoothing the tails of their cutaways with one hand, they advanced up the hall to where in a black and silver dress with a tinsel Egyptian shawl over her shoulders stood Mrs. Harrenden smiling and pyramidal.
"Dick Henley, I haven't seen you for years. We must find time to have a chat... How do you do Mr... Mr..."
"Macdougan."
"Of course... You'll find the young people right upstairs in the library... I suppose you still are classed among the young people, Dick. All seems mere children to me at any rate... You will help me to make an oldfashioned jolly wedding of it, won't you? It's not a social affair at all. No one is invited but a few indispensable, intimate friends. So vulgar these great society weddings... So much nicer to have only a few intimate friends..."
With a silky swish Mrs. Harrenden stalked towards the door which was encumbered by a new car full of guests.
At the top of the brown-carpeted stairs they ran suddenly into Cham Mason who was crawling on his hands and knees across the upper hall.
"Hello, Cham."
"Why, if it isn't Fanshaw... Look, for crissake, help me... Susie Beveridge has broken her string of pearls. We're looking for them because with all these strange people... How do you do, Henley? I hadn't seen you." He got to his feet unsteadily and rubbed his hand across his closecropped yellow hair. "Gosh, I'm tight as a tick... Come into the library and have a cocktail... I got to have a lil' sip to sober me."