“It won’t be a shocker, like some of Tommy’s parties, only a little personal attention for a few of the old comrades,” said Irene. “You and Ward can see as little of the rest of the bunch as you please. Tommy has promised me solemnly to let booze alone. I suppose his wife will never know how hard I’ve worked to keep him straight! Ridiculous, isn’t it? Before that woman came back from California Tommy hadn’t touched a drop for a month, and he’s been doing wonderfully ever since. The good lady was so pleased with his appearance and conduct that she beat it for New York last night to buy clothes and by the time she gets back I’ll be ready to release my mortgage on Tommy for good and all. I’ve broken the news to him gently and he’s been awfully nice about it. This is really my last appearance with Tommy—it’s understood on both sides. I wouldn’t go at all if it were not for you and Ward.”
Grace envied Irene the ease with which she met situations. Irene’s cynicism, she had decided, was only on the surface; she wished she could be sure that she herself possessed the sound substratum of character that Irene was revealing. Irene had sinned grievously against the laws of God and man; but after disdaining those influences that seek to safeguard society, and carrying her head high, with a certain serene impudence in her wrong-doing, she now appeared to be on good terms with her soul. It was a strange thing that this could be—one of the most curious and baffling of all Grace’s recent experiences. Face to face with the problem of her future relations with Trenton, Grace was finding in Irene something akin to a moral tonic. Irene, by a code of her own, did somehow manage to cling fast to things reckoned fine and noble. Irene, in spite of herself, had the soul of a virtuous woman.
It was to be a party of ten, Grace learned after Irene had conferred with Kemp by telephone at the lunch hour. For the edification of the three strange men Irene had provided three other girls who had, as Irene said, some class and knew how to amuse tired business men without becoming vulgar. Grace knew these young women—they were variously employed down town—but she would never have thought of asking them to “go on a party.”
“Not one of these girls makes less than two thousand a year,” Irene announced loftily. “God preserve me from cheap stuff! It makes me sick, Grace, to see these poor little fools who run around the streets, all dolled up with enough paint on their faces to cover the state house and not enough brains in their heads to make a croquette for a sick mosquito. If it hadn’t been for all this silly rot about emancipating women they’d be at home cooking and helping mamma with the wash. As it is they draw twelve a week and spend it all on clothes to advertise their sex. Do you know, Grace, I sometimes shudder for the future of the human race!”
II
Jerry had been reinforced by a colored cateress and the country supper produced at The Shack proved to be a sumptuous dinner. Kemp had brought from his well-stocked cave on the farm the ingredients for a certain cocktail, known by his name throughout the corn-belt. The “Tommy Kemp” was immediately pronounced to be the last word in cocktails,—a concoction which, one of the visitors declared, completely annulled and set aside the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States as an insolent assault upon the personal liberty and the palate of man. Kemp was in the gayest spirits; the party was wholly to his taste. The men he entertained were conspicuously successful, and leaders in the business and social life of their several cities. Irene had confided to Grace that there were at least ten millions of good money represented in the party.
The cocktails were served in the living room to the accompaniment of much lively chatter. Grace found herself observing with interest the readiness with which the young women who were strangers to The Shack’s hospitality entered into the spirit of the occasion and met on terms of familiar good fellowship the men they hadn’t seen before. It helped her to forget her disappointment at the size of the party to speculate about the men and the curious phase of human nature that made it possible for gentlemen whose names were well known throughout America, who looked as though they might pass the plate in church every Sunday, to enter joyfully into the pleasures of such a function. Irene had made no mistake in her choice of girls; they were handsome; they looked well in their summer frocks; they were lively and responsive; they were pastmistresses of the gentle art of kidding. There was no question but that the visiting gentlemen of wealth and social position enjoyed being kidded, and the fact that some of them had daughters at home much older than the girls who did the kidding in no wise mitigated their joy.
One of the gentlemen evidently preferred Grace to the girl who had been assigned to him. Under the inspiration of his cocktail he told Grace that he had long wished to meet her; that now they had met he was resolved that they should never part again. Grace summoned all her powers of flirtation and encouraged him, realizing that to snub him would be to prove herself a poor sport; and she had heard enough of parties from Irene to know that a girl must not when “on a party” give cause for any suspicion that she is of the melancholy tribe of kill-joys. She took a sip of the “Tommy Kemp” and handed it to the gentleman who was so beguiled by her charms, who drained the glass, murmuring ecstatically:
“To the most beautiful girl in the world!”
“Don’t let grandpa worry you,” whispered Irene. “Just tease him a little and he’ll think he’s having the time of his life. We’re not drinking—you and I. This is positively my last party! I’m going to have my hands full keeping Tommy sober.”