There were flowers and paper decorations. There was a girl for Jimmie. A Miss Somebody-or-other—a blonde edition of his sister, older but as streamlined—in a lamé dress. The glittering garment and the gleaming of her hair made him think, not of a person, but of a weapon in a sheath. No denying that she was beautiful. He looked at her closely as she turned toward him and his brain swam for a moment.
Waiters at the half-trot brought oysters on shimmering ice and poured wine.
Music came from nowhere that he could see. A woman said, “Jimmie, tell us about London.”
The heads came around like heads at a tennis match. Jimmie picked up his glass in fingers that threatened to snap its stem. “War going on,” he said rudely.
His mother glared and made herself smile. “Jimmie had us all promise not to ask any questions tonight.”
A man said candidly, “The devil he did! What does he think we came here for except to get the low-down on the British game? Prodigal home—fatted calf killed—and no memoirs! A sellout, I say!”
“I’m a poor prodigal,” Jimmie answered, “and due only a lean calf. You see, this is my first night home and I’m pretty happy to be here and, well, you people and this dinner and the whole town seem kind of fabulous. You’re the real prodigals! I’m so darned busy trying to get used to all this that I can’t think back to—that.”
The Miss Somebody at his side said, in a voice lowered so no one could hear, “Not very sporting of you, Jimmie! Life in Muskogewan’s on the dull side. You’re the most exciting thing that’s happened this fall! At least, I strongly suspect you could be.”
She looked at him with eyes like an electric shock.
“What should I have said?” He stared at her, unbelieving.