“There’s room for a difference of opinion. For myself, my classes promise to be large this season—and I’ve wonderful frocks. I’ve reopened the Hotel Particular and tried to get Collin or Caleb on the ’phone but their men say they are not about. I only saw Bliss by accident,” she gave a side glance at Thurley, “it was then I learned about you!”
“Is the Hotel Particular as smart as ever?” Ernestine hastened to ask.
“I’ve had no end of things done to it. Come and see. Which you never do. Isn’t it strange, Miss Precore, I pay five calls to this person’s begrudged one?” and Lissa smiled in her most disagreeable fashion.
Ernestine tried to smooth over the accusation by praising Lissa’s frock.
“Mark played rouge-et-noir at Monte Carlo and I won a winter’s wardrobe,” Lissa boasted.
Ernestine rose and ordered fresh coffee. She was embarrassed that Thurley must meet the first real scandal in her house, not but what she would and must meet many such and not that it shocked Ernestine for she had always been indifferent to such situations. But latent motherhood pricked through the armor of indifference. She began in an extremely spirited manner to talk of things to which the answers could be anything but personal. She directly engaged Lissa in conversation, leaving Mark free to drift over towards Thurley. Within a few moments they began laughing over some nonsense, to Lissa’s annoyance, in the same spirit with which Thurley and Dan had one time laughed—at least two lifetimes ago!
Mark sat on a straddle chair before her to admire her wild-rose coloring, contrasting it with Lissa’s well rouged cheek. He liked Thurley’s green frock which brought out the whiteness of her skin and the glorious, deep sea eyes, purple in the winter’s afternoon light. Presently this embryo prima donna and the famous dancer, who for the time being mistook shadow for substance, found themselves discussing juvenile sports which both really had rebelled at leaving behind.
“You skate? So do I—let’s go incog—I’ll wear a mustache—there is certain to be a crowd if we’re known,” Lissa heard Mark saying.
“ ... and in summer I can play five sets of tennis—and dance half the night,” Thurley made answer.