Mrs. Warner smiled at Dick and the two girls and it became obvious that she did not know who Fliss was. If Fliss had been of the slightest consequence, Mrs. Warner would have known. As it was, she acknowledged her introduction with great graciousness.
“Have you, like Cecily, just finished school? Where have you been studying?”
It hurt Fliss to admit that sum total of High School, but she was far too wise not to be frank.
“I’ve just finished High School,” she answered. “There was no use sending me anywhere else. I wasn’t nearly clever enough.”
“She’s the infant prodigy when it comes to dancing, though,” said Dick lightly.
After all, it was a great moment for Fliss. She was part of an intimate group which was peerless socially—Cecily Warner, Mrs. Warner, Dick Harrison—and then the moment passed. With what was almost a gesture of dismissal, Mrs. Warner withdrew her daughter.
“We must hurry, dear. There are to be guests for dinner. Are you riding with me or walking? Did you get any exercise to-day?”
Dick cut in lightly, taking Cecily’s arm, “She hasn’t had any exercise, I’m sure. Let me walk her home, Mrs. Warner. And I’ll get her home in lots of time because I have to speed on and get dressed myself if I’m to get any of your dinner to-night.”
Fliss slipped out of the group a little awkwardly and, moving past the indifferent hand of her hostess, found herself in the street. The motors for the guests were gliding skillfully up and down before the house. Here and there, a group before the open door of a limousine were still gossiping, or three or four people turning away for a brisk walk home. The little tan figure, drawing a modish, unpaid-for fur about her trim little neck, stood for a moment on the steps, seeming to look on at the spectacle of her own social inconsequence. Then she too slipped into the shadows and on towards her own home.
A year ago she had prevailed upon her parents to take an apartment, for the old, brown-porched house in which she had been brought up had been almost intolerably shabby. It had seemed a very fine change to Fliss at first. She liked the nouveau art touches in the apartment living-room, the frescoed grapes in the dining-room, the mirrored door of the small, inconvenient bathroom. But the glamour had largely gone by this time. And to-night it was rather more faded than usual. To drive up to the apartment house door in some one’s limousine was not so bad. To walk down the stupid street by which she must approach the house was different. It was depressing. Fliss, who seldom knew depression, had the visible lines of it around her mouth as she pushed open the door of the tiny hall and smelled the frying grease of the lamb chops in the kitchen. She stood before the hall mirror, taking off her hat and putting it away carefully, hanging her suit coat up carefully too, with the fur draped over it. Her mother came in to watch her.