But Thurley shook her head and vanished, singing snatches of her exercises and finding out that she was not so tired as she had fancied; the languor had magically vanished. She propped Hobart’s tantalizing note on her dressing table as she did her hair.
Thurley—
Come and be christened at seven-thirty. The family must know the baby.
B. H.
Thurley deliberately powdered her face and added a soupçon of superfluous rouge. She was thinking, “Now I shall know the real man, the real Bliss Hobart,” dropping into a hum instead of singing aloud, always a symptom of rare joy.
Presently she appeared to say good night to Miss Clergy, a radiant young person looking, as Caleb Patmore said afterwards, “an up-to-date historical romance bound in green velvet and silver lace.” But she was disappointed in Hobart’s apartment, for she realized at a glance it was only more of his “setting”; that here he existed as Bliss Hobart the critic and master, not Bliss Hobart the man. It was equally as awesome as his studio offices, but in a more distinguished, definite style. There was rare, decorative wall paper, with shellacked panels set in the yellow, marbleized walls reproducing the design made by David for the great Napoleon. Black, velvety carpet covered the tiled floors, the chairs were of deep mouse color edged with gold fringe, there were pale gray hangings against shell pink satin screens and a tiled Portuguese mantel of blue and yellow.
She found Ernestine Christian and Caleb Patmore waging a lively argument, with Bliss Hobart enjoying it hugely. Nor did they stop after Thurley’s bashful entrance and Hobart’s introduction,
“The family infant! Remember, ‘children should be seen and not heard.’ There’s the chair for you, and if you are very ‘pie’ and don’t contradict your elders, you’ll be rewarded later.”
Thurley accepted the rôle gladly. It was evident they considered her a promising infant. Some day she would be able to tell them the same half-patronizing things or be introducing some other prodigy into the family in equally clever, blasé fashion. That first and memorable dinner party was more of an education than all the lessons Thurley had endured since her New York advent. Here she saw the demonstration of the theories taught her regarding form, cleverness and so on. Long before the evening was ended, she felt she could now dispense with the social secretary, the beauty doctor and the gymnast. She had only to observe her “family” and practise the results of the observation before her mirror.