They turned through the hall to an interior more remarkable than anything Linda could have imagined; it seemed to her very high, without windows and peaked like a tent. Draperies of intricate Eastern color hung in long folds. There were no chairs, but low broad divans about the walls, a thick carpet with inlaid stands in the center laden with boxes of cigarettes, sugared exotic sweets and smoking incense. It was so dim and full of thick scent, the shut effect was so complete, that for a moment Linda felt painfully oppressed; it seemed impossible to breathe in the wavering bluish atmosphere.
Markue, who had appeared sufficiently familiar outside, now had a strange portentous air; the gleams of his quick black eyes, the dusky tone of his cheeks, his impassive grace, startled her. New York was utterly removed: the taxi that had brought Judith and her, the swirling traffic of Columbus Circle and smooth undulations of Fifth Avenue, were lost with a different life. She saw, however, the open door to another room full of clear light, and her self-possession rapidly returned. Judith—as she had threatened—at once deserted her; and Linda found an inconspicuous corner of a divan.
There were, perhaps, twenty people in the two rooms, and each one engaged her attention. A coffee-colored woman was sitting beyond her, clad in loose red draperies to which were sewed shining patterns of what she thought was gold. Markue was introducing Judith, and the seated figure smiled pleasantly with a flash of beautiful teeth and the supple gesture of a raised brown palm. That, Linda decided, was the way she shook hands. Two dark-skinned men, one in conventional evening dress, were with her; they had small fine features and hair like carved ebony.
Linda had never before been at an affair with what she was forced to call colored people; instinctively she was antagonistic and superior. She turned to a solemn masculine presence with a ruffled shirt and high black stock; he was talking in a resonant voice and with dramatic gestures to a woman with a white face and low-drawn hair. Linda was fascinated by the latter, dressed in a soft clinging dull garnet. It wasn't her clothes, although they were remarkable, that held her attention, but the woman's mouth. Apparently, it had no corners. Like a little band of crimson rubber, or a ring of vivid flame, it shifted and changed in the oddest shapes. It was an unhappy mouth, and made her think of pain; but perhaps not so much that as hunger ... not for food, Linda was certain. What did she want?
There was a light appealing laugh from another seated on the floor in a floating black dinner dress with lovely ankles in delicate Spanish lace stockings; her head was thrown back for the whisper of a heavy man with ashen hair, a heavenly scarf and half-emptied glass.
Her bare shoulders, Linda saw, were as white as her own, as white but more sloping. The other's hair, though, was the loveliest red possible. The entire woman, relaxed and laughing in the perfumery and swimming shadows, was irresistible. A man with a huge nose and blank eyes, his hands disfigured with extraordinary rings, momentarily engaged her. Then, at the moment when she saw an inviting and correctly conventional youth, he crossed and sat at her side.
“Quite a show,” he said in the manner she had expected and approved. The glow of his cigarette wavered over firmly cut lips. “We've just come to New York,” he continued. “I don't know any one here but Markue, do you?” Linda explained her own limitations. “The Victory's fine and familiar.”
She followed his gaze to where a winged statue with flying drapery was set on a stand. She had seen it before, but without interest. Now it held her attention. It wasn't a large cast, not over three feet high, but suddenly Linda thought that it was the biggest thing in the room; it seemed to expand as she watched it.
Beside the Victory, in a glass case with an enclosed concealed light, was a statue, greenish gray, a few inches tall, with a sneering placidity of expression as notable as the sweep of the other white fragment. “That's Chinese,” her companion decided; “it looks as old as lust.” There was the stir of new arrivals—a towering heavy man with a slight woman in emerald satin. “There's Pleydon, the sculptor,” the youth told her animatedly. “I've seen him at the exhibitions. It must be Susanna Noda, the Russian singer, with him. He's a tremendous swell.”