Beecher, squeezed in between Louise Fontaine and Mme. Fornez, slightly bewildered by the fragrance of soft, filmy wraps, immensely flattered by the favor he had won, nevertheless was wondering to himself whether among the gay party he was approaching would be the laughing eyes and rebellious ashen hair of Nan Charters, whom he intended to treat en ennemi, and whom he particularly wished to witness his triumphant entry at the side of the celebrated Emma Fornez.
CHAPTER IX
The party was in full progress when they arrived. Jack and Tom Lindabury resided, as far as they could be said to reside anywhere, in a great green stone house of the 1860 period, with a deep garden in the back on which originally stood a stable, access to which was had, in the Parisian style, by a long, vaulted passage at one side. The Lindaburys, having discovered, as many other young men of fortune did at this period, the social adaptability of the artist's atelier, had transformed the stable into a great studio, with a kitchen and two or three dressing-rooms, which served when the place was given over to amateur theatricals or to the not always restrained fêtes of the brothers' invention.
Gunther's party emerged from the hollow passage into the sudden cool of the short garden, where masked stone seats and arbors were faintly disclosed by the great stable lantern which swung at the entrance of the studio. Several couples, profiting by the obscurity, could be seen moving in the sudden shadows of the garden, laughing with a nervous, stifled laughter, as groups crossed or joined one another.
Holliday and Beecher, recognizing acquaintances, saluted them with the light banter, which was the note of the evening. Mme. Fornez, inside, called her companions with exclamations of surprise which drew the whispered curiosity of every one to her entrance.
"Oh, how funny it is! Look, Teddy, what do you call it? It is your—cowboy life, is it not?"
The great room had been transformed into a mining saloon of the type made popular by a certain play of the day. A bar ran across one end, presided over by an impossibly wicked bartender. A roulette-wheel was crowded at one side, while a negro orchestra, in 1850 costume, was busily sawing away, led by a cotton-head darky on a soap-box, who droned out his directions. Three-fourths of the room were in costume, Indian, Spanish, cowboy or frontier At the appearance of the new arrivals in evening dress, a shout went up:
"Tenderfeet, tenderfeet!"
"Fine them!"
"Shoot 'em up!"