Holding me off, she surveyed me critically. "You look very well.
That's a good-looking dress. It suits you. I believe you wear pearls
and these untrimmed things just to bring out your hair and eyes.
Nobody but you could do it."
Stopping her short, quick sentences, she leaned forward. "There he is, coming up the steps with Mr. Alexander. Come on; they're inside. We can go down now. By the way"—she pinned the orchids at her waist with unnecessary attention—"Selwyn got back yesterday. He will be here to-night. Dick Moran is sick, and Selwyn is taking his place. At first he declined to come. For weeks he's been going nowhere, but he finally promised. Are you ready?"
Without looking around she went out of the room, and without answering her I followed. I was conscious chiefly of a desire to get away, to do anything but meet Selwyn where each would have to play a part; but as I entered Kitty's drawing-room and later met her guests I crowded back all else but what was due her, spoke in turn to each, and then to Selwyn, as if between us there was no terrifying, unbridged gulf.
Kitty's dinners are perfect. I am ever amazed at the care and consideration she gives to their ordering. In art and letters she is not learned, but she is an expert in the management of household affairs, and her dinner invitations are rarely declined.
At the table, with its lilacs and valley-lilies, its soft lights and perfect appointments, were old friends of mine and new acquaintances of hers, and with the guest of honor I shared their curiosity. Very skilfully Kitty led the chatter into channels where the draught was light, and obediently I did my best to follow. There was much talk, but no conversation.
"Oh, Miss Heath!" A young girl opposite me leaned forward. "I've been so crazy to meet you. Some one told me that you'd gone in for slums. It must be so entrancing!"
I looked up. For a second Selwyn's eyes held mine and we both smiled, but before I could speak Kitty's lion turned toward me.
"Yes—I heard that, too." Fixing his black-rimmed glasses more firmly on his big and bulging nose, Mr. Garrott looked at me closely. "In my country slumming has become a fad with a—a certain type of restless women who have to make their living, I suppose. But I wouldn't fancy you were—"
"She isn't."
Jack Peebles, now happily married, blinked in my direction, signaled me to say nothing, then turned to the Englishman. "Miss Heath can do as she chooses, being Miss Heath, but the Turks are right. Women ought to be kept behind latticed windows, given a lute, and supplied with veils, and if they ask for anything else, they should be taken from the window."