“But as for questioning her again,” I added, “what’s the use?”
Helen Furneau shrugged her shoulders. “Well, I thought I’d tell you, anyway.”
“I appreciate that,” I told her.
“She’s a queer woman,” Mrs. Furneau went on. “She used to be ultra-conservative, before her husband died. But since she’s been wandering around the globe, with nothing in particular to occupy her, she’s taken on a crowd that even I would call queer. And I don’t believe anybody ever accused me of conservatism.” She laughed whimsically.
Naturally I pricked up my ears at that, though I don’t think I showed it. Anyway, I turned the conversation back to my charming hostess a moment later.
Presently the guests began to arrive. They were the usual mixed lot of artists and professionals, with a rich sprinkling of foreigners, for whom Helen Furneau had a particular penchant.
I was deep in cynical platitudes with a round-bodied and rat-eyed little cubist who looked as if he needed scrubbing, when Helen called my name.
She stood at my elbow and, turning, I found myself facing the loveliest girl I had ever seen. She was dressed in gray—clinging, filmy stuff—with a big gray floppy hat. I took that much in before Mrs. Furneau completed the introduction. Then the girl’s big gray eyes met mine gravely, lingered a moment taking me in, and fell away from mine with just a hint of shyness. She was obviously quite young and obviously out of place in that galère.
I was introduced in turn to her aunt, a fussy and voluble person, by all external signs; of the kind that rushes in and so forth. That over, I turned to the girl again with an inward sigh of relief. If I must talk to rat-eyed cubists for the sake of my search, there could be no harm in a few moments off duty in such obviously wholesome company.
During my introduction to her aunt, Miss Van Cleef had stood close to our hostess, and while I made the remark or two to her aunt which convention required, the girl was talking to Mrs. Furneau. She was speaking as I joined them.