"I don't know him. Margaret seemed older, not strong,—what is the matter with us all!"
"You'll understand what is the matter with Margaret when you see Larry! And then she has three children,—an indecent excess, with her health and that husband."…
The company broke up after the prolonged luncheon almost at once, to Isabelle's regret; for she wished to see more of these people. As they strolled upstairs to the library Cairy followed her and said:—
"Are you going to Mrs. Bertram's with us? She has some music and people Sundays—I'll tell Mrs. Woodyard," and before she could reply he had slipped over to Conny. That lady glanced at Isabelle, smiled on Cairy, and nodded. What she said to Cairy was: "So you've got a new interest. Take care, Tommy,—you'll complicate your life!" But apparently she did not regard Isabelle seriously; for presently she was saying to her, "Mrs. Bertram wants me to bring you around with us this afternoon,—you'll like it."
Lane begged off and walked back to the hotel in company with the lawyer. After a time which was filled with the flutter of amiable little speeches, appointments, and good-bys, Isabelle found herself in company with the Silvers and Gossom, Cornelia and Cairy on her way to Mrs. Bertram's, which was "just around the corner,"—that is, half a dozen blocks farther up town on Madison Avenue. Mrs. Silver was a pretty, girlish woman with a troubled face, who seemed to be making great efforts to be gay. She and Cornelia called each other by first names, and when Isabelle asked about her later, Conny replied with a preoccupied drawl:—
"Yes, Annie Silver is a nice little thing,—an awful drag on him, you know. They haven't a dollar, and she is going to have a baby; she is in fits about it."
As a matter of fact Silver managed to earn by his swiftly flowing pen over four thousand dollars a year, without any more application than the average clerk.
"But in New York, you know!" as Conny explained. "They have lived in a little apartment, very comfortably, and know nice people. Their friends are good to them. But if they take to having children!" It meant, according to Conny's expressive gesture, suburban life, or something "way up town," "no friends." Small wonder that Annie Silver's face was drawn, and that she was making nervous efforts to keep up to the last. Isabelle felt that it must be a tragedy, and as Conny said, "Such a clever man, too!"
* * * * *
Mrs. Bertram's deep rooms were well filled, and Cairy, who still served as her monitor, told Isabelle that most of the women were merely fashionable. The men—and there was a good sprinkling of them—counted; they all had tickets of one sort or another, and he told them off with a keen phrase for each. When the music began, Isabelle found herself in a recess of the farther room with several people whom she did not know. Cairy had disappeared, and Isabelle settled back to enjoy the music and study the company. In the kaleidoscope of the day, however, another change was to come,—one that at the time made no special impression on her, but one that she was to remember years afterward.