“The dark girl in pink. She’s familiar.”
“She should be. She has a press agent in New York. Lady Selene Tucker. She’s going to marry that man who looks like a Lewis Baumer picture in Punch as soon as every one’s in town again and she can get Westminster Abbey and he can get his mother shipped to New Zealand, or somewhere. His mother will drink too much and then tell lies about Queen Victoria. She’s rather quaint. She sues for libel every time any one writes a novel with a dissolute peeress in it. Frightfully self-conscious. Don’t people who insist on telling you how depraved they are make you rather ill? They always seem to think they’ve made such a good job of it. And I could think of much worse things to do.—How nice your hair is! Like Uncle Eddie’s.”
“Thanks. Who’s the skinny woman with the pearls?”
Margot put aside the palm branch that shadowed her chin and frowned. “It looks like my namesake, Mrs. Asquith, from this angle.—No, it’s Lady Flint. Oh, look at the big brute in mauve. Lovely, isn’t she?”
He looked at the shapely, fair woman without interest. The round of Margot’s forearm took his eyes back.
“Lovely? Why?”
“So glad you don’t think so. One gets so sick of hearing women gurgled about as wonders. I think it was Salisbury who said she was the most beautiful woman alive. And she goes right on, you know? Once you get fixed here as frightfully beautiful or witty you can die of old age before they stop saying so. Such a fraud! It’s just what dad says about all the managers and stars in New York being myths. All those legends about his being a woman hater and—who’s the man who’s supposed to never hire a chorus girl until he’s seen her au naturel? Such piffle!”
“But they like being myths,” Gurdy laughed.
“Oh, every one does, of course. Some one started a yarn about me—don’t tell dad this—that I was the daughter of some frightfully rich American banker and that my mother was a Spanish dancer. Olive was wild with rage. But it was rather fun.—I say, I’m sick of this, Gurdy. Do make dad order me home.” She lit a cigarette, let her lashes drop and ignored a man who bowed, passing. Gurdy thought this was Cosmo Rand and said so. Margot shrugged. “He rehearses us every day. Decent sort. People like him.—But do make dad have me come home.”
Gurdy pondered. Mark now knew a few gentlewomen, the wives of authors and critics. He had mannerly friends outside the theatre, had drilled smart war theatricals. The girl could move beyond this wedge of certainty wherever she chose. But Gurdy said, “You might not like New York.”