The orange juice and square bottles of clear gin, the array of glasses and ice-filled pewter pitcher in which Lee mixed his drinks, were standing conveniently on a table in the small reception room. Fanny, in a lavender dress with a very full skirt decorated with erratically placed pale yellow flowers, had everything in readiness. “Mina Raff came,” she announced, as he descended the stairs. “Anette telephoned. To be quite frank I didn't much care whether she did or didn't. She used to be too stiff, too selfish, I thought; and I never liked Anette.”
“Nothing but prejudice, that,” he replied decidedly. “Anette has a very good head. You have just heard stories from envious women.” He was careful to say nothing about her legs. “I haven't found her the least bit out of the way; and she thinks a lot of you.”
“Bosh,” Fanny said inattentively; “I know what she thinks of me. I am surprised, Lee, that you do so well, because really you are nothing but an impressionable old fool.” She touched him affectionately on the cheek, “But I can take care of you and Anette too.”
He didn't in the slightest wish to be taken care of in the manner she indicated; yet there was nothing he could answer; and, at the sound of a motor on the drive, he turned toward the entrance at the back. It was the Lucians; and as he greeted them the whole small company swept into the house. Claire, with her narrow dark vivid face, wore diagonals of black and grey, with a long trailing girdle of soft blues and pinks. She came up at once to Lee and kissed him with a warm friendliness. “Have you seen Mina Raff?” she asked; “she's wonderful.”
As Claire spoke Lee Randon saw the woman who was becoming such a noted personality. She was slim, neither tall nor short—Peyton Morris was removing a voluminous white cloak with dull red stripes and a high collar of fox. He had been wrong in his remembrance of her, for her loveliness was beyond challenge. Yes, a wistful April moon described her very well: Mina Raff was ashen blonde, her face was a very pure oval, and her large eyes, the delicate slightly drooping mouth, held an expression of devastating sweetness.
She came forward promptly, and yet with a little touching air of hesitation, and accused him, in a serious low voice, of having forgotten her. That, he returned, was ridiculous, an impossibility. Pictures of her were in all the magazines. Close by her he recognized that the sweetness was far from sugary; there were indications of a determination that reached stubbornness; already there were faint lines—skilfully covered—at the corners of her eyes, and she was palpably, physically, weary. It was that, he decided, which gave her the wistful charm. That and something more. She was considered, he knew, and by the judges best qualified, to have a very sure and perfect talent; and he had no doubt that that possession stamped and qualified her.
He was obliged to attend to the cocktails; and, at his back, a gay chatter of voices rose. He had fleeting impressions of very different people: a strange man in naval uniform with the insignia of a commander; Anette in a scanty sheath of satin from which an airy skirt spread to the left like a fan; Alice Lucian sitting on the steps with George Willard: Frank Carver remote and lost in his bitter thoughts; Elsie Wayland with the gold halo of an income almost a dollar a minute.
Mina Raff, with Peyton Morris at her shoulder, smiled at him. “What an adorable house,” she pronounced; “I wish I could have it near the studio.” She waved Peyton away unceremoniously, “Come, everybody has had enough drinks, and show it to me.” They passed through the hall, and into the quiet of the space beyond, lighted by a single unobtrusive lamp. “What a satisfactory fireplace!” she exclaimed in her faint key, as though, Lee thought, her silent acting were depriving her of voice. She sank onto the cushioned bench against the partition. “How did they feel, do you suppose—the people, the men and women, who belonged to such things?” As Lee watched her it seemed that she grew more remote, shadowy, like a memory of long vanished beauty made before his eyes from the shifting firelight and immaterial shadows. Mina Raff lost her reality in an unreal charm that compressed his heart. The atmosphere around her stirred with re-created dead emotions. Then:
“Ah!” she cried softly, unexpectedly, “what a wonderful doll.” She rose, with a graceful gesture of her hands up to where Cytherea rested. “Where did you get her? But that doesn't matter: do you suppose, would it be possible for me, could I buy her?”
“I'm sorry,” Lee answered promptly; “we can't do without her. She belongs to Helena,” he lied.