“A good time?” Mary repeated. “Are you inoculated, too?”
“What’s wrong with a good time? I guess Steve O’Valley plays all he likes!”
“Yes, dear, I guess he does,” Mary forced herself to answer.
When Steve returned home that evening he found one of those impromptu dinner parties on hand instead of a formal engagement. They had become quite the fad in Bea’s set. The idea was this––young matrons convened in the afternoon at one of their homes for cocktails and confidences; very likely Sezanne del Monte would drop in to read her last chapter or Gay Vondeplosshe would arrive brandishing his cane and telling everyone how beautiful the Italian villa was to be; and by and by they would gather round the piano to sing the latest songs; then when the clock struck six there would be a wild flutter and a suggestion:
“Let’s phone cook to bring over our dinner. Then our husbands can come along or not just as they like. We’ll have a parlour picnic; and no one will bother about being dressed. And we’ll go to the nickel dance hall later.”
This was followed by a procession of cooks arriving in state in various motor cars and carrying covered trays and vacuum bottles and departing in high 196 spirits at the early close of their day’s work. Then the procession of subdued husbands would follow, and conglomerate menus would be spread on a series of tea tables throughout the rooms, with Sezanne smoking her small amber-stemmed pipe and describing her sojourn in a Turkish harem while Gay picked minor chords on his ukulele. After a later diversion of nickel dance halls and slumming the young matrons would say good-bye, preparing to sleep until noon, quite convinced that any one would have called it a day.
Such a party greeted Steve, with Gay showing plans for Beatrice’s secret room with a sliding panel––clever idea, splendid when they would be playing hide and seek––and the cooks en route with the kettles and bottles of wine and the husbands meekly arriving in sulky silence.
A little before two in the morning Steve escorted Aunt Belle back to the Constantine house.
Beatrice had started to go to bed, but thinking of something she wished to ask Steve she stationed herself in his room, some candy near at hand and Sezanne’s manuscript as solace until he should arrive.
“I wanted to ask you if Mary Faithful has returned,” she said, throwing down the manuscript as he came in. “Heavens, don’t look like a thundercloud! You used to complain about getting into evening dress for dinner; and now when they are as informal as a church supper you row even more. How was papa? Did you go in to see him? Does the house look terrible?”