She had begun with a fashionable and semi-fashionable nucleus which included Mrs. Atherstane, the Countess d'Enver, Latimer Varyck, Olaf Dennison, and Pedro Carrillo, and then enlarged the circle from those perpetual candidates squatting anxiously upon the social step-ladder all the way from the bottom to the top.
The result was what Ogilvy called intellectual local option; and though he haunted this agglomeration at times, particularly when temporarily smitten by a pretty face or figure, he was under no illusions concerning it or the people composing it.
Returning one afternoon from a reception at Mrs. Atherstane's he replied to Annan's disrespectful inquiries and injurious observations:
"You're on to that joint, Henry; it's a saloon, not a salon; and Art is the petrified sandwich. Fix me a very, ve-ry high one, dearie, because little sunshine is in love again."
"Who drew the lucky number?" asked Annan with a shrug.
"The Countess d'Enver. She's the birdie."
"Intellectually?"
"Oh, she's an intellectual four-flusher, bless her heart! But she was the only woman there who didn't try to mentally frisk me. We lunch together soon, Henry."
"Where's Count hubby?"
"Aloft. She's a bird," he repeated, fondly reminiscent over his high-ball—"and I myself am the real ornithological thing—the species that Brooklyn itself would label 'boid' … She has such pretty, confiding ways, Harry."