“Aren’t they a curious mixture of restraint and hilarity? It’s a contradiction—a sort of disciplined madness, isn’t it?”
“Oh, yes, they have dark, strange, patient souls, and yet ... they can be wildness itself. And they’re entirely obedient to the designs of the playwright. They never let their personalities swagger all over the stage at the expense of the author.”
The two walked off, still talking, and Blanche eyed them regretfully as she wished that they had remained within hearing. Most of the men and women at the party seemed to be disinclined to talk about impersonal subjects. Their only aims were drinking, dancing, and making love to each other. Of course, they were tired of their more sober professions and the heavier problems in life, and wanted to forget them for one night at least—but this explanation scarcely lessened Blanche’s disappointment. She was longing to hear discussions on art and psychology—matters that were still semishrouded to her. She had been to tens of parties where people were “running wild” and foxtrotting and mauling each other—it was nothing new to her.
She answered the teasing remarks of the man beside her with abstracted monosyllables, and watched another couple—a tall, dark, negro youth, with the face of a proud falcon, and an ample-bodied white woman in her early thirties, with a round face void of cosmetics but like an angelic mask that could not quite hide the jaded sensuality underneath it. She leaned closely against his side while he stroked one of her arms and looked at her with an almost scornful longing on his face. Blanche gazed intently at them—this was an exception. All of the other mixed couples that she had noticed had consisted of negro girls and white men, and she had been on the verge of believing that the women of her own race were only tolerantly “fooling around” and had no deep response to the colored men. But no, she was wrong. Another white woman and a negro youth were whispering together on the piano-bench, with their heads almost touching and their right hands clasping each other.
How queer it was—even she had succumbed to the spell of the negroes, while dancing with them. They were like wise children—they could be abandoned and serious in such a quick succession, and there was an assured, romping, graceful something about them. Still, loving any one of them would probably be impossible—she still shrank a little from the nearness of their bodies, when the sorcery of the dances was removed.
The teasing man departed, thinking her an odd iceberg, and another man sat beside her. She turned to look at him. He was of her own height and had a muscular body, a pale white skin with the least tinge of brown in it, and straight, light brown hair brushed back. His lips were thin below a narrow nose, and his large, gray eyes seemed to be full of silent laughter, as though the scene were an endurable but trivial comedy to him. In his tuxedo suit, well fitting and distinctive, and with his athletic, graceful body, that was neither too narrow nor too broad, and the high-chinned but not supercilious poise of his head, he could have been mistaken for some movie hero more natural and finely chiseled than most of the other stars in that profession.
He looked at Blanche and smiled—a smile that was respectful but had the least touch of impudence.
“I haven’t been introduced to you—I came in rather late,” he said, easily. “My name’s Eric Starling.”
“Mine’s Blanche Palmer,” she replied.
“Isn’t it rather silly—this trading of names right off the reel?” he asked. “They’re just empty sounds until people get to know each other, and then, of course, they do begin to suggest the qualities within each person.”