Chapter XVI
After the maids had cleaned the apartment and had left, Drew went to the dressing room, removed his white shirt and collar, handed them to a small Chinese boy and seated himself before the vanity, observing the strain on his features which had come so suddenly.
“Your father was a wise man, little Tai,” he said to the child. “Place your hand on my shoulder. Do you find it hot?”
The child bowed and went to Drew, acting as he had been bidden. He avoided Drew’s eyes in the mirror and his voice trembled.
“Yes, Master,” he said, but he could not keep back his tears; so cupping his tiny hand, the little, hot gems were caught before they fell upon Drew’s head, which now rested upon the edge of the vanity.
“We will go away very soon, Tai,” Drew said at last.
The Chinese boy did not answer, still fearful of betraying his emotion; but for an instant he hovered over Drew with the same patient love of his own distant gods.
“Master,” he whispered finally, “I have some secret petals from my father. He told—he told me—” Little Tai burst into open tears and kneeling, placed his head upon the floor.
Drew turned around in surprise and seeing the lad prostrated before him, bent his own shoulders lower, the Orient in his eyes. Then, scorning in his tenderness all laws of blood and caste, he picked up the boy and laid him upon the ottoman. Still weeping, Tai lay in a tiny curl, his golden tunic tight against his back. Drew quickly knelt down and whispered to him.
“Were the petals for my bath, little one?” he asked.
“Yes,” sobbed the child.
“Tai,” said Drew gently, his soft fingers brushing the tears away, “they were given to you for a time when I should be very sick. Is that not so?”
“It is so, Master,” whispered the child. He sat up with a cat-like movement. “I have a little golden whip, Master. Will you strike me?”
Drew looked at him strangely. Rio had mentioned that word in a curious fashion only the day before. Could it be that by coincidence?—Drew stopped the course of his reflections and arose. The symbol of the whip was ridiculous!
“Bring me the scourge!” he said.
Tai ran to a wall-cabinet, and from the vase which held his father’s ashes he pulled, coil by coil, a gilded whip and handed it to Drew who took it by its handle looking with intensity at the cruel barbs at the end, and wondering if they were poisonous.
“I shall not beat you, Tai,” he said finally. He looked now at the handle and thong which held his wrist. “Tai,” he said, “are the petals a secret, really?”
“Yes, Master,” said the boy, smiling shyly.
Drew held out his delicate fingers.
Blushing, and timidly approaching, Tai bowed over his master’s hand; and in his moment of adoration murmured a little prayer his mother had taught him. Then taking a small, scented package from the breast of his tunic, he ran toward the bathroom, turning once in the doorway to bow his devotion.
When he had gone, Drew replaced the whip and laid his arms across his face. And as he heard the sound of small feet on the tile and the water running for his bath, he looked again into the vanity and cried out in a high, soft voice an unintelligible name....
Tai twisted a white satin robe about Drew’s slender form as Floyd, the hairdresser, was announced.
“Is everything in readiness for Madame’s coiffure?” asked the expert, mincing forward.
“Yes, Florabelle,” said Drew, standing once more before the vanity.
Tai withdrew with backward steps.
“Florabelle” took a small silk handkerchief from his pocket and gently dusted the bench upon which he suggested that “Madame” rest her slender form. With much bowing and curtsying, Floyd was now ready to proceed with his masterful art of transforming this man into a charming hostess.
The beautician was slight, with tiny features. Although he was well on in years, he looked no more than fifty. “A half century plant,” he had once called himself. He wore his hair long and dyed it periodically, according to the fashion. On his feet were patent leather pumps of shining black, with medium heels. With his frock coat of gray he wore dark trousers. While engaged in his profession, he affected a long white smock with a lavender lace handkerchief in the pocket over his heart. His cheeks, having been recently paraffined, were now symmetrical and would remain that way for weeks to come, when their contour would again have to be remodeled.
He fingered Drew’s hair, combing it straight back from the head. The short locks fell gracefully between his fingers as they discussed the different styles—dismissing this, then that one until the matter was decided. Then quickly Floyd began his craft.
“Madame,” he said, “as a privileged acquaintance of long standing, do I know any of your guests of this evening?”
“Yes, Florabelle,” said Drew, in a soft and gracious tone. “You recall Beulah. She has been suffering lately with acute indigestion and general complications. But she’s coming.”
“My dear Madame!” The artist raised his eyes to the ceiling. “That one! She should have retired from society years ago! She is very well fixed financially, you know, but oh!—she is so tight! I’ll wager she’s home now dressing her own hair! Imagine! The ends will all be burned, and there’ll probably be some burns on her neck. It simply makes me shiver! And she’ll wait until she gets here to-night to use your powder! It’s not that I care—but I could transform her into a beautiful person. Her taste is vile—simply vile! And dearie, with that face!—I’d have to work for hours and hours! As I’ve said before, I don’t care what she does, but she could be made ravishing!”
Florabelle’s dainty white fingers had been busy at work—shampooing and rinsing—and were now in the act of combing the hair and turning the soft ends under.
“What gown has Madame selected to enhance her singular beauty, if I may ask?” questioned the little hairdresser.
“White velvet, ’Belle. I feel nostalgic this evening,” answered Drew.
“Ah!” cried Florabelle in delight. “Then indeed I have a gorgeous surprise for you! I have an amazing lotion, greaseless, odorless, which tints the hair an incredibly lovely white. I used it on Monsieur—” he bent down and whispered a name into Drew’s ear. “She insisted upon it. Madame was very gay that evening. It was the first time I had tried the preparation on any of my exclusive clientele. Madame was wearing a short velvet jacquette of green over her white velvet gown; and she wore green rouge on her cheeks and lips in the current Parisian fashion. Dearie,” the hairdresser put one finger to his lips and took a step backward, “would you like to be the first to use these tints in America?”
“I should love white hair with the dress,” said Drew thoughtfully. “But not the green. I prefer to wear a small jacquette of black velvet lined with red. Make my lips the same shade as the lining.”
“Oh!” cried Florabelle. “You shall be a dream!” And he set to work.
Drew sat quietly, continually admiring himself in the mirror—an occasional turn of the lip or a raised eyebrow showing approval—amazed with each glance at the artistry of the man who was transforming him.
Florabelle talked incessantly, constantly gesturing until Madame’s coiffure was finished.
“Ah, Drewena!” now cried the little hairdresser. “You are complete—so perfect!” he exclaimed delightedly, finishing off with a touch of perfume upon the eyebrows and behind the lobes of Drew’s ears.
Drewena walked slowly through the drawing room and critically observed the fold of the draperies. It was just before twilight and through a high, oval window crested with stained glass, she idly watched the towers below her. There were tears in her eyes. The light became softer, barely touching now the throats of the doves which nested in the eaveless pinnacles, subduing the irregular flash against their wings. Their silent, ever-changing motion somehow caused her to think of Martin; and the recollection of the mannerisms of her friend—that isolate, strange night in the cocktail lounge—his actions there, sometimes gentle, but more times cruel, made Drewena close her eyes. Why these tears?—like those of a younger passion—full of the same anxiety, the same dull anger at enslavement and desire to escape! She looked into the east, formed her lips into a smile and turned away. Tying her white satin robe more closely about her waist, Drewena sat down at the piano, one slim, white leg against the casing of deep ivory. On each end of the piano was a tall cathedral taper, lighted. The irradiance was vague under her hands as she improvised. The melody was reminiscent of Chopin, and again of Debussy. Drewena consciously built a theme upon their lovely chords, and smiled to herself as she thought of the semblance of originality attained by other contemporary plagiarists. As she continued to improvise, Patsy, known as “Pat” on more sober days, entered the drawing room.
An “English” butler, whose father had been Irish, Patsy was carrying a small bouquet of black lilies brought from the Malay peninsula at great trouble by Drew’s florist. Devoid of her usual attire, Patsy was somewhat ridiculous. Her concave nose and forehead where the toupee failed to hide the round, bald skull, gave her a strange type of “swish.” Her upper teeth sagged in the back when she talked, and her bulbous lips had the appearance of an aging tomato. She wore a little “how-de-do!” of white lace upon her wig which had become entwined in it. A single wart of considerable size pushed through the tiny cap which fell at intervals over her nose for lack of better support. Her black silk skirt was short, showing the bony protuberance of her knee where once, in a moment of folly, she had mounted a horse and was promptly unseated, bruised and flattened. Her blouse was full, barely concealing two lemons she had taken from the icebox. Altogether, with her wide grin and unhappy form she was seemingly the most pathetic of creatures. But when Drewena languidly motioned for silence while she played on, there was an amused understanding between the servant and mistress as Patsy adjusted the flowers on one corner of a table where they would catch the reflection of their darkness in a tall mirror whose frame was a wreath of golden doves in flight.
In Deane’s living room, Martin stood by the divan examining a long-trained evening gown of canary yellow. Its pale satin sheen in the lamplight was unusually luminous against the blur of the couch. Martin spoke earnestly.
“But I don’t understand, Deane. A guest can’t be just an observer at one of these private affairs. I’d be clumsy. I wouldn’t fit in and I don’t see why you want me to go.”
There was a perverse light in Deane’s eyes. She was thinking strangely. She wondered: Is he sure, really sure he won’t fit in? But aloud she said, “Drew invited you and that is sufficient reason.”
Martin looked at the dress again.
“Am I supposed to wear that fantastic rig just to satisfy a whim of yours and Drew’s? I tell you, Deane, the entire situation is repellant to me.”
Again Deane thought in the same odd manner: It isn’t like him to shy away from anything. He knows himself so well—is it that he’s afraid?—she stopped these thoughts. “It only seems repellant, Martin,” she observed. “Drew will make things easy.” She bit her lip. “And Carol and Roberts will be there, too. Why don’t you take it as a joke?” She tried to laugh, but the effect was so hollow and unusual that Martin turned and put his arms around her.
“What is really behind this, Deane?” he asked her gently. “Is Drew attempting a new type of drama, and are you in on it? If it’s a game, I’ll go along with you.”
“It isn’t a game,” said Deane insistently. “There isn’t anything dark or mysterious about it. It’s just a costume party—a stag affair, that’s all.” She avoided his searching gaze.
Martin laughed brutally, the hurt and sickness inside him manifested. Then he sobered, looked at her steadily for a moment, a faint shine in his eyes.
“All right,” he said quietly. “What do I do first?...”
After he had taken a bath, he shaved as closely as possible and rubbed his glowing body with a scent not unpleasant, although he imagined that he detected the impossible effluvium of man-oil as its base. Next he pulled on long stockings of a light sun-tan, his lip curling. But the curious feel of silken underwear and all the intricacies of the garter belt intrigued him, and he laughed aloud as he fastened his stockings to it. The artificial breasts were made of soft rubber fiber, of medium size and cup-shaped in appearance. It was with considerable trouble that he hooked these objects on, the elastic and stays acting contrary. The dress went over his head with difficulty, also; but he twisted and pulled it until it came into place. After he had smoothed out the wrinkles with his hands and set it square with a few quick jerks he felt more comfortable—the gown was even cool and good against his belly. So he sat down with relief and put on the pale yellow satin slippers set aside for him. When he stood up, however, one ankle bent under the strain of the high heel. After that he moved more cautiously, trying to remember the principles of navigation on an icy, rolling deck, and although he lacked a certain naturalness, he soon walked easily enough.
Deane laughed and clapped her hands when she saw him and seemed herself again; but in a moment she returned to the grim abstruseness of her former attitude. She narrowed her eyes, put on an apron, then draped a towel around his neck to keep from spilling the make-up on his shoulders. Martin leaned back, closing his eyes in silent despair; while Deane, testing each shade of lipstick on her hand until she found the right one, realized that she had never tried so hard with herself. She gave his lips, which seemed carved, a brilliant color for the artificial light.
“Damn it,” he said.
Deane did not reply. It was unlikely that she heard him, for the same antagonistic attitude surrounded her; and, too, she was absorbed by her painstaking job. The blue line of underbeard around the jaw and chin had to be blocked out; for this, she used a flesh-colored paste, rubbing it in gently. The rice powder was rachel in shade, made almost the color of Martin’s skin by the addition of a pinch of ocher. This was carefully smoothed away. She used no rouge. And so she continued, blending and examining, until she stepped aside to view her finished handiwork and exclaimed rather sharply, “Sit up!”
Which Martin did, looking at her with a kind of agitated wonder. But Deane, seeing only his face—with his gray eyes now turned to green, and his somewhat melancholy expression softened by women’s devices, ran to him, fell on her knees and began to weep deeply. At this, Martin lifted her to him, holding her, trying to kiss her cheeks. But she slipped away and dried her tears and blew her nose, saying, “It would spoil your looks and I’ve worked too hard for that.”
He started to put his hand to his head but Deane cried out, “Oh, no!” For his hair, parted in the middle, had been combed back of the ears to a point at the base of his neck, where a braid, similar in shade and texture, had been cleverly attached, wrapped and pinned. His hair was now the same wheat-like color as his skin; and the cold, precise line from his head to his shoulders had the essence of that deliberate, calculated passion which so often appeals to the sensitized, yet physical individual. When at last he stood up and lit a cigarette, leaning with a conscious gracefulness upon the piano, Deane went to him and looked up at him uncertainly. Seeing him stand there in such elegance and strength, she bitterly regretted the perversity which had driven her to push him toward this mad adventure. And though her pride rebelled at calling it off at this late moment, she said rather timidly, “Of course, Martin, you don’t have to go if you really dislike it so much.”
“What?” he almost shouted, looking at her incredulously. “Well, I’ll be damned!”
“Oh, hush!” said Deane nervously. “Of course you’re going! I was just teasing.” But she looked at this man in woman’s clothing and she realized she had never been so attracted. She watched the long muscles flex in his arm as he moved his cigarette. A furious desire struck her.
“You must hurry,” she whispered, gritting her teeth. “You will be late.” Again Martin looked at her steadily, the green glaze covering his eyes.
“I’ll return immediately after the party,” he said, picking up the wrap she had chosen for him. “Read this—” and he pressed a letter into her hands and left, unsmiling.
When he had gone, Deane opened the letter with feverish haste and read it swiftly. Still standing, she threw it across the room, removed her hairpins and mussed her hair until it was wild. With a sob she flung herself face down on the divan and worked her body on the pillows until she screamed. Then she wept until she fell asleep.
Carol arrived at the drag wearing a leopard cape with a high, stiff collar. There was a single stone in his triple-peaked tiara, filigree work coiling around the gem. Patsy helped him off with his wrap, glanced slyly at his rather buxom figure, and announced him in the drawing room in a falsetto voice.
“Miss Stevens,” cried Patsy, in her unusual pitch.
Drewena hurried forward and put her arms around her guest.
“Carrie!” she exclaimed. “You look simply gorgeous!”
Carrie’s cheeks deepened with pleasure. Her saucer-like eyes gave out a wet, blue happiness.
“I’m so glad you like me,” she said. “I didn’t want to look tacky.”
“‘Tacky,’ indeed!” said Drewena, for the beauty of Carrie’s gown astonished her. “That,” she continued, looking at the dress, “is a creation! Where did you find it?”
Carrie’s eyes shone with pride, though at the same time there was delicacy in the way she modeled the skirt with her hands.
“I didn’t find it, Drewena. I designed it. I made it for next spring, thinking perhaps I might be a June bride. I planned to do it in white if the style was attractive.” Carrie looked a little anxious. “Is the severe line too much for my hips?—they are rather large.”
“Of course not, dear,” answered Drewena. “It is very becoming.”
“Then,” said Carrie, “you do prefer the material to taffeta or crepe. I’m so glad,” she continued. “Those flouncy things always make me feel like a middle-aged matron.” She pushed the blonde hair of her transformation more firmly behind her ears and touched the roll at the back of her neck.
Drewena marveled at the change in her young friend. How awkward and lonely Carol had appeared in the stilted, formalized trousers styled for men! And how charming was this lovely Carrie, away from the stiff tailoring of masculine attire!
Drewena studied the gown. As she saw it, the waist-line—the Grecian fashion in which the garment fell into the imperceptible folds of the long train, had the artless symmetry of certain sculpture. The dress was without sleeves, close-fitting, with high, pointed breasts, and with its back cut low, to the waist. Its color was a gentle pink of shaded salmon that blended into Carrie’s smooth bare arms. There were two golden bracelets on her wrists and two small bells on the ring-finger of her left hand. Following the soft curve of her throat was an exquisite, golden necklace. As she stood and turned in such a manner that her white back, with a tiny mole on the shoulder could be seen, Drewena put her arm around her waist, and pulled her aside, where they could talk alone.
Out in the hall, Carrie grasped the arm of her hostess.
“Will Martin be here to-night?” she asked almost shyly.
Drewena frowned.
“I don’t know, my dear,” she said at last, noting the child-like look of disappointment which appeared on Carrie’s face.
Inside the dressing room, which had been transformed into a powder room for the guests, a pompous creature was seated at the vanity. “Beulah” was a retired manufacturer with a great deal of money in the bank, but no penchant for spending it. In fact, she was known to drive the sharpest bargain for “trade” of any of her sisters, never carrying more than a quarter in her pocket when she cruised. Nor did her pick-up have to be presentable, for she worked the doughnut shift. “They’re all the same,” she used to say sententiously. “Just throw a sack over it, and shoo it out before dawn.... And never give them breakfast,” she would caution, if permitted. “It spoils them.” Whenever the fleet was in, she would go into retirement. She would lock all her doors and keep her butler on a kind of sentry duty, not even admitting a hallboy who might have an idle moment. As far as the fleet was concerned, no one quite understood Beulah’s strange reaction. But it was established fact that once, avoiding her usual care, she had sneaked away to the drugstore for a soda. Intent upon her guzzling, she had failed to notice a sailor who had sat down close beside her. But upon turning her head and seeing the man in uniform, Beulah had let out a shriek, her eyeballs had rolled upward and she had fainted dead away. Some said that doubtless it had been some frightful experience which had given her this strange allergy. “It must simply have put her in stitches!” one of her friends had observed.... As for the hallboys, it was true, she never paid them well; but there were always things to be picked up, and Beulah’s eyes were failing. The hallboys loved her for this little infirmity, and never took anything more than they felt was honestly due. Altogether, Beulah was regarded as a rather queer, but decidedly powerful person in her set; and no young debutante could expect a successful coming out unless Beulah was behind her—which she usually was.
Thus Drewena realized the value of this social contact for Carrie if the young girl was to spend much time in New York.
“You look awfully nice this evening, Beulah,” she said. “What are you doing out here all alone?”
“Powdering my face like mad,” Beulah answered, daintily packing the rich powder into the sore jaw and chin where she had shaved too closely. “Those faggots outside are dishing me to death. Just wait till I go in, though. They’ll stop their cackling!”
Drewena led Carrie to her by the hand.
“Beulah,” she said, “I want you to take Carrie under your wing to-night. She may not be in New York long and I want her to have a grand evening. I’ll want her part of the time, when I’m not going the rounds.”
Beulah lifted her sagging, experienced face to Carrie, who stood there, fluttering slightly. Then the dowager graciously held out both her hands.
“I’ll show you the best people, dearie,” she said. “Just hold on to your old auntie’s arm and we’ll see if there isn’t some trade in sheep’s clothing. And by the way,” she added, smiling shrewdly in the sunless room, “is that little bitch, Kate, going to be here? I’ve made a vow to do that one! She can’t fool these old professional eyes—tired though they may be.”
Drewena laughed.
“Yes, Beulah, she’s here. And quite beautiful too, in green. She just got back from Chili—some kind of an electrical engineering project.”
“‘Project,’ my grandmother!—rest her bones.” Beulah sniffed. “Doing the Indians again—what she sees in them is beyond me! But the hussy is interesting.” Beulah swished the bow at her back, spread the wide skirts of her lavender gown and opened a long black ostrich feather fan. Breathing deeply, so that her large bust swelled out, she followed Drewena out of the room, taking Carrie on her arm.
“There she is,” she whispered hoarsely, and the old lady stopped to glance covetously at Kate.
Kate was dressed in a green velvet gown of a deep jade cast. Her necklace was of intercircled loops of jade as was her linked green bracelet. The earrings were slender pendants of the same hue and stone. With this ensemble she was bound to use a cautious make-up—her skin, tanned by the flat sun of the Andes, being almost enough. Only a dark red splash across her lips, as though she had been recklessly eating cherries, seemed a necessary cosmetic. Her black hair was curled bewitchingly, up from the forehead and sides. When she saw Beulah, she beckoned wildly and the green purse which hung from her arm banged against a punchbowl which was near the tiny bar.
“Common!” someone said in a stage whisper, but Kate only laughed and crooked her finger at Beulah again, who strode forward with aggressive, formidable steps, half dragging Carrie.
“Have a drink, darlin’?” asked Kate, looking up at the dowager.
“Thank you, my dear,” said Beulah, in an affected voice. “It’s so sweet of you to ask me.”
Kate ladled out two drinks. As she handed one to Carrie, she said, “That’s a lovely gown, honey. Drewena told me you made it yourself. Why don’t you drop around at my place some time next week and show me how you do it?”
Beulah coughed slightly and pinched Carrie’s arm.
Kate turned to her with another glassful of punch.
“Here you are, dear,” she said. “It will be good for you.” But she was thinking, “I’ll bet it’s the first free drink she’s had in months!” Aloud, Kate spoke again. “And now, darlin’, do have another.”
Beulah nodded graciously, her eyes a little brighter.
Kate thought once more, “You old bitch! I hope you choke on it and get as blue as blue can be!”
“Kate, dearie,” said Beulah, after her fourth, “there’s just the right touch of bitters to the bottle—it makes one have a feeling of heavenly bliss!”
Kate smiled and thought, “You don’t know a good drink from a bad one. You just take all you can get, and that’s all you know. You might have been pretty in your day—but your blooming days are past forever.”
At this moment, a splendid creature bore down upon them, all sails set. She was a broad-shouldered fellow, whose snappy skirts and impudent coiffure failed to cover her intention.
“Mercy!” she exclaimed. “Just dishing it!”
Kate took a whisky straight and smiled at the “debbie” in a tantalizing fashion.
“To think,” said Kate, “a moment ago there wasn’t a piece of trade in sight! I was just hoping.”
The big girl turned around and looked back over her shoulder.
“Oh!” she cried in an obligato, “you New Yorkers can be so bitchy!” Then she sailed on and rounded the turn to the powder-room.
“Dirt!” said Beulah.
“Tawdry!” exclaimed Carrie.
“From Boston?” asked Beulah.
“No, Baltimore,” answered Kate. “Working up from the bottom in her father’s steel mill, I believe. That’s where she got the muscles. The thick head came naturally though.” Kate opened her purse and took out a small bottle of perfume from which she removed the stopper. Shaking a few drops of the scent on her fingers, she touched them to her ears and throat, patting the remaining moisture on the imperceptible beard around her chin.
Just then, Patsy’s familiar voice announced “Miss Roberts.”
Drewena was standing by the door as the newcomer, somber of face even through her high, natural coloring, and as Drewena thought, all the more beautiful because of her stone-like gravity, entered the drawing room; for, dressed in a cunningly fashioned gown of silver cloth, she looked more like an impassioned Joan of Arc in mailed armor than a modern executive of lives. Around her throat lay her mother’s string of black pearls, and her hands were encased in an unusual muff of blue fox.
“I’m so glad you came after all, Roberta,” said the hostess quietly. “You have been keeping too much to yourself, and I’m sure that you’ll have a little fun to-night. Carrie is here—she’s the most amusing camp! And Kate, and Beulah, and Docky——”
“Damn them all!” interrupted Roberta. “Take me to that corner over there where no one is standing.”
Drewena saw the painful expression on her face and nodded agreement, sitting down with her for a moment.
“Is Martin coming to-night?” asked Roberta nervously.
“Why, yes,” said Drewena. “That is, I think so. I sent him a note, urging him to be here. I have such a pretty name for him.”
“Yes, yes, of course,” answered Roberta, a little absently, tapping her silver slipper against the side of her chair. “Is Rio coming?”
“Indeed not,” said Drewena, amazed at the question. “Ask that man up?—I should say not!”
“‘Man’—my petticoat!” observed Roberta. “What’s the matter with you, Drewena? That one is dashed for fair! Her hard-boiled act doesn’t fool me a bit. She’s a damned poseur and as full of bitchery as——”
“Stop shaking,” broke in Drewena. “For heaven’s sake! All the cats are beginning to gossip about the way you’re acting. See old Docky talking with her hand over her mouth? She knows perfectly well that I can read lips. If she hadn’t been a splendid surgeon in her day and attended my father years ago, I should never have invited her.”
And Docky was saying to the more elderly group clustered around her at this moment, “It’s shameful the way Roberta monopolizes Drewena’s time. In a way though, one can’t blame her. For dearies, Roberta hasn’t long to be a queen at the rate she’s going!” Docky pulled her shawl more tightly about her neck.
“What is wrong with her, Docky?” asked one rather vapid, sweet-faced auntie. “Is she sick?”
At this, Docky raised her lorgnette and looked at the speaker, a quiver of amusement lacing her cheeks back and forth until it seemed they would have met if her nose hadn’t kept them apart.
“Precious!” She lifted her hand. Enormous jewels sparkled and flickered on every finger. “I wouldn’t know. I haven’t been out with her since she was a child—ah!” Docky breathed. “Those halcyon days!”
Back in the corner Drewena sighed.
“If you won’t, you won’t, Roberta; but it looks like intrigue, and I hate intrigue. You’re positive you won’t give even a short number? I wish you’d read one of your own lovely poems. You did, last year, and they’ll expect it. Of course, if you won’t, I’ll send Carrie over to keep you company during the program.”
“Not unless you want a murder at your drag,” said Roberta in such a menacing voice that Drewena started, then watched her guest for a moment until the fire was out of Roberta’s eyes, and some of the hatred expressed on her face had dissipated.
“Roberta,” she said at last, “if you are ill, you should go home. It would be doing both of us a kindness.”
“I’m not sick,” said Roberta evenly.
“Why do you hate Carrie so much?” persisted Drewena.
“Don’t talk like that,” said Roberta, in despair. “It’s just that she thinks of Martin. She thinks of him in a terrible way. Please don’t question me further.” Roberta opened her compact, studied herself in the tiny mirror and powdered her face lightly, smoothing away the lines from her forehead and looking with detachment at the shadows under her eyes. Drewena took her hand for an instant and held it tightly before she left. But as she walked toward the punchbowl with its merry company, there was an intimate, definite foreboding and a striking glance of prescience from her heavy-lidded eyes. Her appearance was so exotic, so provocative, that when Kate offered her a drink, she wanted to offer her a kiss as well.
The widows around Docky, however, were still discussing Roberta.
“Look at her,” said Daisy, the pretty one. “Holding her jaws down at the side in that manner. If I were half so pretty as she, I wouldn’t hide in the corner like that.”
“I’ll bet you wouldn’t,” yawned Docky, grasping her upper plate, as she had a horror of swallowing it.
Again Patsy’s high voice rang out, this time against the music of the orchestra.
“Miss Devaud,” she bawled.
Drewena’s face grew whiter as she went gracefully but swiftly to the arch-like entrance to greet the new arrival, whose perfect casting—the unusual make-up against the wheat-colored hair, against the long, pale yellow dress, against the turquoise of her eyes, and the strong, uneven modeling of her features brought the hostess to a stop before she reached her guest.
“Beautiful Miriam,” she whispered.
Miriam contemplated Drewena without expression, though enjoying her beauty far more than she liked to admit. While Drewena was thinking in confusion how and where to get her friend alone—away from the others who would spoil her with their eyes—yes, with their thoughts, as Roberta had said. If she, Drewena, could only touch her once—could only hold her.... So taking her guest by the hand, she quickly pulled her back into the hall.
“Come upstairs for a moment, Miriam,” she whispered hoarsely. “You must have earrings to make you perfect. I have some of jet that will make you lovelier than ever!” They ascended the wide spiral staircase.
Carrie ran after them. On the bottom step she paused. As they disappeared around a bend in the stairs, Carrie clung tightly to the newel post. Then turning, her eyes wide, she stepped down and hurried to Beulah.
Roberta, sitting in her corner, saw all this, and the rapidity with which she changed coloring caused old Docky to chuckle something about adrenalin. But Roberta was really acting strangely. She seemed ready to leave her chair, then at intervals would pull something halfway out of her muff. Docky could not quite see, for Roberta covered the object cleverly. Each movement, however, was hesitant, until finally, with a certain air of fatalism, Roberta settled down in a rigid posture which she maintained for some time.
Upstairs, Drewena opened a door beyond the staircase, and led Miriam out on the terrace. Saturn was in conjunction with the frozen moon. Midway between the zenith and the horizon, the moon, as if by some prearrangement lightened Drewena’s white face until her beauty would have been nebulous had she not been pressed so closely to her friend. Miriam’s face, however, had caught the amber tone of the planet, and her cheeks seemed flushed as though by moonburn. Drewena pulled her inside again and sat beside her on the bed. She turned out the indirect lights and lay down, her head on Miriam’s lap. The moon shone upon them brightly.
“Miriam,” she said, “is that a halo around your head, dearest?”
“It’s the moon in the fuzz of my wig,” answered Miriam seriously.
Drewena sighed. “How I wish,” she said, “that we could have stayed out on the terrace!—Perhaps we can come up here after the guests have gone.... This bed is so deep and wide, we’ll cool off quickly.... And to-morrow we can go to a little cottage I have up on the coast near Cape Cod.... We’ll listen to the wind—and there’ll be snow, and the surf breaking on the rocks under our doorstep.... You’ll carry a lamp to help me to my bed. I want to be dependent on you—oh! you understand!” Drewena put her gentle hands on Miriam’s cheeks. “They’re hot, Miriam. Perhaps you are excited, too—perhaps I won’t have to go away as I told Tai! He’s my little protegé! I’ll send him to France with his tutor.... My dearest, tell me that I needn’t go!”
Miriam petted her gently and explained quite simply that of course she didn’t have to leave; but when that was said, she kept repeating, “Go!—go!—go!—” continuing to blend the words until they became untranslatable.
Drewena looked at her in astonishment.
“What do you mean?” she asked. “Those words—they have a cadence that makes me feel insane—Please don’t talk like that!... Dear God!—All I ask is that you bear with me. I’d never cheat Deane. It’s on a different plane. Quite different. Kiss my lips, Miriam—I’m tired—so tired.”
“Aye,” said Miriam gently, “that I can do! For you’re as sweet a little maiden as I’ve ever seen, lying so in the moonlight.” And bending over, she pressed her lips upon Drewena’s. The white-tinted hair fell over her shoulders and Drewena shuddered as Deane had shuddered. There was no distaste, for Drewena lay quietly now in Miriam’s arms, only a slight, convulsive movement betraying her passion. Then Miriam sat up and leaned away as though into the moon; for a feeling had come over her during that kiss that she could not interpret. It was a half sick, half desirous mood of great intensity. And so, unaccustomed to tempering her emotions, she threw Drewena back upon the bed and held her tightly, her mouth pressing on her throat. Drewena did not resist until the desire had grown and Miriam groped blindly. Then quickly Drewena struggled away and as quickly turned on the lamps.
“Not now,” she laughed, a splendid light in her eyes. “Later—after the party. Oh,” she exclaimed, bending toward her friend, “it’s the heaven I thought I’d never find—the soul, the mind, the body.... But now, we must hurry and touch ourselves up.” And she hung the long, jet pendants from Miriam’s ears. So the gowns were smoothed out, the hair recombed and pinned, the make-up applied anew.
When at last they entered the drawing room there was only the faintest buzzing of interest among the more intrepid of the gossipers. Even this ceased as Drewena, her arm linked closely in Miriam’s, stopped at various groups to introduce her friend. Docky stopped chattering just long enough to size up Miriam’s figure.
“Miriam, my dear,” she said at once, “if I’d known you were coming, I’d have worn my new gown of cardinal red. To think!—you see me in the faded splendor of this musty blue! You must come and chat with us this evening.” She looked at Miriam intently and pulled her shawl even tighter. Then she smiled, a good deal of understanding and more than that, compassion, expressed in her face. When Drewena took Miriam with her to the punchbowl, Beulah turned on Docky in a fury.
“Only past sixty, and you’re back to childhood! I could scratch your eyes out! Miriam is simply lovely, and now you’ve driven her away!”
“There, there,” Docky said, in her best professional tone. “It’s just as well—Drewena loves him.”
“‘Him’?” screeched Daisy, fascinated.
“Don’t get so excited, Daisy. Remember your blood pressure,” said Docky calmly. “Of course, ‘him’! The boy’s as jam as the preserves you used to steal off your mother’s shelf!”
“Absurd!” said Beulah. “She has a grand dash!”
“On the edge, dearie, but he’s never fallen off, and I doubt if he ever will. The habit pattern has unfortunately fixated him for women. Ah!—if I could have had him to mold some years ago!”
“‘Jam’!” cried Daisy once more, her hands to her ears.
Docky pushed back the wisps of gray hair from her forehead and took out her left eye, wiping it carefully.
“Mercy!” said Beulah. “Must you do that in company?” She tossed her head angrily. “And don’t tell us how you lost your real one at Ypres! There!” She pointed swiftly toward the punchbowl. “I knew it! Kate is trying to snitch Miriam from Drewena!”
“Common!” said the same sepulchral voice that had uttered this word before.
Everyone turned around to see who had repeated it, but there was no one in sight. Docky chuckled.
Kate was speaking vivaciously to Miriam until she caught Drewena’s eye, whereupon she merely shrugged her strong bare shoulders and turned petulantly away. The moment of ensuing silence was broken by Patsy’s high-pitched tremulo, which seemed to be growing weaker.
“Miss Murphy!” she shouted feebly.
Miss Murphy did not wait for Drewena’s welcome. She flew into the room in a state of deshabille, her black lace dress torn slightly on the shoulder, her corsage of gardenias darkening around the edges as though they had been crushed in a heavy fist.
“Oh, my God!” she said, breathing heavily as Drewena comforted her.
Kate stole a glance at Miriam and whispered, “Doing the taxis again!” Then she took a glass to the newcomer.
“Drink this, Sophie,” she began, when the other turned on her, stamping her foot and pulling the torn lace back over her shoulder.
“Don’t you dare offer me any of that sickening, frothy slop!” she cried. “I want a straight one, or I’ll just die!”
Kate lifted the glass and drained it.
“‘It was good enough for mother, and it’s good enough for me,’” she quoted sweetly. But Drewena called for a glassful of whisky and handed it to Sophie who began to drink it greedily.
Docky had her hand over her mouth again and was leaning toward Beulah.
“Don’t look now,” she said. “Sophie’s watching us like mad. I’ll bet she thinks we’re dishing her.”
“Well, dearie,” said Beulah, her hand covering her lips also, “she’s right. But I won’t smile, and don’t you dare look now.”
But Docky went on, the rest of the group straining toward her, for no one could dish like Docky.
“My God, Beulah,” she said, “they speak of courage in history. But she has a nerve to come here in that lace!”
“‘Lace’!” Beulah appeared shocked. “She bought that netting at the ten cent store to cover her trade with, when she gets that Cleopatrine feeling! No wonder all the cab drivers around Pennsylvania Station are looking tired these days!”
“Shish!” said Docky. “Look now, dearie. She’s terrible from the front. Do you notice her fallen chest?... And what do you think of the back? And oh!—what ugly hands! I’m sure those hands have snitched many pieces of silver in her time!”
“I don’t care how much silver she has snitched,” said Beulah, “but I do hope she’ll keep her dirty mitts off Miriam. Really, Docky, you don’t honestly believe that Miriam might be jam, now do you?”
Docky leaned over and spoke into Beulah’s ear.
“Don’t tell anyone, but I’m really sure. I really shouldn’t have told you, but since you have thrown so much my way in the past——”
“Christ!” said Daisy, fidgeting with her lavaliere. “Sophie really makes me ill. She always looks as though she’s straight from the washtub.”
“True,” said Docky, “from the shanty on the other side of the tracks. It’s a shame for her to have money, with me dodging creditors like mad! Look at her trying to be elegant, wiping her nose with her soft, raggy wrist—and dearie, her nose isn’t running from a cold. That one’s been broken down for years and years. Old saddley ass! She looks as though she had three pillows in her rear!”
“It is indecent,” agreed Beulah. “And she doesn’t have fallen arches for nothing. She’s been cruising most of her life.”
“That she has!” said Docky. “My God!” Docky leaned forward excitedly. “She’s picking up her skirts! Do you see those varicose veins on her leg? They stand out like the knots on a pinetree!”
Drewena was now urging Sophie to give the first “number” of the evening. But Sophie, partly drunk from her brief, but thrilling escapade with the cab driver, kept showing a bruise on her shoulder.
“It hit me! The person really hit me! It was all over that cage I brought for my number. Will you have Patsy bring me the cage I left with her? I’ll be in the powder room.”
When she had gone, Drewena explained to Miriam that each guest always gave a little act.
Miriam was thunderstruck.
“I don’t know anything to do. It’s impossible for me.”
“Just anything,” said Drewena, with composure. “It doesn’t have to be much.”
Miriam thought a moment, observing the heavy beam above her, the high ceiling and the shadows.
“Was that Tai whom I saw peeping out into the hall a moment ago? The child looked Indo-Chinese. If you’d lend him to me....”
“I can’t risk the child,” said Drewena slowly. “His father nursed me. And next to you, Miriam, I love him better than anyone but Deane.” Drewena gave a queer smile. “She has a portion of the roundtable of my mind that no one, not even you, my dearest, can fathom.”
“I won’t hurt the child,” said Miriam earnestly. “He’ll think it’s a lot of fun. You can see what I’ll do!”
“It isn’t that,” said Drewena, flushing. Then, “All right. Tai is yours for the trick. What else do you need?”
“A man with powerful shoulders, and a rope,” said Miriam. “And have the orchestra play loudly while I work.”
Suddenly Drewena laughed.
“Oh, you are really good!—I see it now. You’ve always just pretended to be an impossible person. I believe you’d cry easily.”
“Yes, I cry very easily,” Miriam agreed.
“Have you seen Roberta?” asked Drewena suddenly. “She was asking about you.”
“You mean Roberts? No, I haven’t.”
“Well, she’s in a corner, pouting about something. It’s either you, or Carrie—perhaps even myself. She is in a terrible mood to-night. Please don’t have a scene with her. And please, Miriam, remember, this is a drag. I don’t care how masculine they may seem to you,—call them by their feminine names, or address them impersonally as ‘she.’ Do you see Beulah over there in her lavender gown?... He was thirty-nine and three times married before he recognized himself for what he was. Being a flexible character, he slipped quite naturally into his present rôle—that of a tight-fisted, gossipy old dowager, but behind the intermittent lechery of his old and experienced eyes he is a strong man and a gentleman. No one in the everyday world even suspects. They’ve marked him down, in fact, as a devil with the ladies. Kate is a harsher type. He married one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen. She bore him a lovely boy. Then one day, Kate became irritated over a trifle and threw his wife across the room. Fortunately, she was not injured; but he went into a ‘break’ or nervous explosion. From that, into a depressive state and out of it in a wild hysteria. Then came his first love—his consulting psychiatrist.... The pattern was woven swiftly enough—and Kate, too, slipped into her niche, not so pleasant a one as Beulah’s, who takes them as she finds them. Kate is now searching desperately. You will not?—” Drewena hesitated. “Forgive me, Miriam. And now, let us visit Roberta. Please give her a smile and I know she will feel better. We must hurry. Sophie will soon be ready for her act, and you must prepare your magic.”
They walked across the floor, both sated—one by boredom, the other by necessity. When they approached Roberta, she stood up, one hand touching the pearls at her throat, the other holding her muff.
“Drewena,” she said quietly, with slow sarcasm, “it would be a pleasure to meet your friend. She is very pretty in yellow. Did Carrie make the dress?” Roberta’s lip curled. Once more her hand moved convulsively in her muff.
Without a word Miriam stepped up close and running her fingers down Roberta’s arm, slipped her own hand well inside the tiny fur. Roberta shook her off; but Miriam, now looking at her friend as though intrigued, said slowly, “Perhaps you’d like another cocktail, Roberta. It will warm you. Your hands are like ice.”
Drewena looked on, but finding the scene too difficult to interpret, shook her head sadly, murmured something about the program and led Miriam away.
Roberta, still brooding, was left alone in her corner.
Standing by the piano, Drewena clapped her hands and the crowd grew quiet.
“First,” she said, “since Sophie is not ready, I’ll ask Daisy, who has come in her perennial form of the ‘Prairie Flower’ to sing for us.”
Docky sniffed and whispered to Beulah, “Look at her! She doesn’t even have to make up for the part! My dear, do I have to listen to that miserable dentist do her wild flower act again? It’s just been repeated and repeated till I could simply scream! Imagine, trying to carry on at her age when we all know she’s well into the menopause!”
Daisy, however, tripped across the floor, her black taffeta dress flouncing around her wide hips. After bowing to the somewhat bored and suffering crowd, she put her hands to her shoulders and bent her knees. In a stringy voice she sang—
“I’m a little Prairie Flower
Growing wilder every hour!
No one here to care about me—
I’m as wild as wild can be!”
Then she put one hand on the top of her head, and the other on her hip. Jigging up and down to the music of the piano, she began to rotate on her toes. The frayed voice continued—
“I’m a little patchwork quilt
All my edges trimmed in gilt!
No one here to cuddle with me—
I’m as cuddly as can be!”
There was loud, determined clapping, and Daisy ran off the floor, her face suffused with blushes.
“Perfectly grand, dear,” said one of the guests. “So much sweeter than the first time you gave it.”
“That won’t last,” said Beulah, looking at Daisy who had returned to the room and was holding someone’s hand, obviously searching the face of her friend for signs of approval. “It won’t last—I’ve been all through it.”
In the alcove, six musicians wearing short red skirts, white blouses, white silk stockings and red sandals, were holding their instruments in readiness. They were camping among themselves, though the one with the clarinet looked just a trifle uncomfortable. Drewena asked them to play a slow drag and they began “Mood Indigo,” the harpsichordist tapping her red sandal on the side of her chair, each musician looking oddly like his instrument. Drewena favored a tempered arrangement of popular music in the modern idiom. For a simplified expression of this type of instrumentation she had chosen the curious grouping of harpsichord, vibraphone, harp, bassoon, clarinet and drums. She felt that any brass, even muted, would destroy the exotic, passionate tenor of the music achieved by the combination of strings and reeds (the drums having been modulated by casings) and affected also by the arranger, who had found the predominant oriental theme from listening to Drewena herself at the piano.
Some of the dancers walked idly, in as slow a tempo as possible. Others, however, flew around the floor in a febrile reaction to the sometimes sweet, sometimes wild expression of the orchestra. Carrie’s popularity was noticeable. She flew from partner to partner. But her dancing was a little heavy, and her large, moist eyes followed Miriam.
Drewena held on to Miriam tightly, preferring to be led.
“Your arm is like a rock, Miriam,” she whispered.
This winter idyll was drenched in an arbor of delicate flowers that grew from the basketball scents of the dancers. A cloth seemed to cover Miriam’s eyes; but as she opened them, it was Drewena’s white-tinted hair that confused her. The soft waves and ringlets covered Miriam’s arm and the paths that had intrigued her so long were now undivided. Nevertheless, as she breathed of Drewena’s cheek, that which had been unrevealed before came swiftly in an explicable panic. She stopped in the middle of the floor. Her mouth was dry.
“I’d better prepare for my act,” she said quite suddenly.
Without a word Drewena broke from her, and Miriam followed her quick steps through the archway.
“How irresponsible you are to-night, my Miriam,” she breathed, a grave smile darkening her eyes. Then she called Tai.
The child ran into the powder room and bowed reverently before her.
“You will obey my friend for a trick,” she said. “It will not take long.” She placed her hand for a second on his shoulder before she left.
“It will be fun, Tai,” said Miriam, noting the child’s frightened look.
Tai bowed again.
“I shall do as you bid, mistress,” he whispered, his piquant face quite solemn.
Just then a footman entered with a good hemp rope. Miriam rapidly explained the routine of the act, asked the man if his shoulders were strong, gave a simple instruction to Tai, finishing just as the orchestra ceased. The second number was being announced as she returned to the drawing room.
Someone screamed very faintly and Docky looked at Beulah; for, radiant with smiles and dressed in long white tights, Sophie posed in the doorway, a wild-looking pigeon in her hand. She began to pivot slowly.
Docky raised her scented handkerchief to her nose.
“Pee-yoo!” she said softly. “Here comes the pigeon-woman! She’s gone pervert on us!”
“Yes,” agreed Beulah, and began to hum. “‘We’re camping to-night on the old campground.’”
A person near them who was dressed in a hoopskirt made in the shape of a bell, stood up, the bell chiming once, twice, before she adjusted her bodice.
“Your clapper rings indiscriminately,” said Beulah, in a mild tone.
“It is rusty from lack of use, my sweet,” replied Angela, who was an undertaker.
“It is atrophied,” said Docky. “But let’s watch the dance.”
Sophie, who had waited until all attention was centered upon her, now leaped from the doorway, flinging out the pigeon which was tied to her wrist by a string. Upon alighting, one of her thin legs bent under her, then she began to dance. She pirouetted and waved her flabby hips while the bird tried desperately to escape. Once it descended upon her head and lifted the transformation. The guests had a fleeting glimpse of a pink, bald dome. Occasionally Sophie’s joints cracked. The effect was macabre.
“Mercy!” said Beulah. “If my bones were in that condition, I’d have brought my little can of lubricating oil. She positively drowns out the orchestra!”
“‘Little’ can, did you say?” timidly questioned Daisy, who had rejoined the group.
Beulah did not turn her head. Only the bulges on her neck seemed to stiffen and bulge out further.
But Sophie was now in difficulty. The pigeon had become terrified and was jerking at the string. All pretense of dancing stopped and Sophie stood there, feebly waving her arms. Pitying her, Drewena stepped to her side, closed one hand gently around the panicky bird and slipped the noose from its leg. Out in the dim corridor she opened a window, touched her cheek to the bird’s soft, rumpled feathers and, with a sigh, tossed it into the darkness.
Miriam had returned to the powder room when Sophie came in, near to hysteria, weeping.
“Oh, heavens!” she cried, while the mascara streamed down her cheeks. “It stooled on me!” And she wiped the top of her bare head with a handkerchief.
“That’s nothing—a seagull once did the same for me,” said Miriam. “You can’t get it off that way. Why don’t you stick your head under the shower?”
“You’re insulting,” said Sophie, drying her eyes.
Miriam left the room in disgust.
Another number was on. Carrie, her fingers fan-shaped over her heart, was singing “Mother Macree” in a soft voice, high and clear. The strange tonal quality was like that of a contralto.
Drewena was accompanying her. And along the rows of gossips there was now complete silence. Miriam noticed that both Beulah and Docky were holding handkerchiefs to their eyes, and when the last words—“God keep you and bless you, Mother Macree” trailed off, Miriam watched a solid, tremulous emotion sweep the crowd. Only Kate, openly defiant to any sentiment, poured a drink down her throat and looked at the others with disdain.
This time, as they danced, Miriam sneaked the footman in through the back, and hoisted him to the long beam, one end of which lay in shadow. Once more, she whispered instructions to her assistant, then went for Tai. The music ceased and she could hear Drewena quieting the crowd.
Then Miriam entered the room. She did not walk with the air of one experienced in drag, but her stalking, feline movements seemed even more proper. Several paces behind her came Tai, a rope over one tiny shoulder, his eyes lowered. He still wore the golden tunic and it gleamed against his little body as he held out the rope to Miriam. She took it, coiling it sailor-fashion on the floor, then hurled one end to the ceiling where it held, in a rim of shadow. Immediately Tai grabbed it and climbed upward to the beam, apparently on a rope which was in no way supported. Only the magician could see the tensed form of the footman holding the slight weight of the child. Then Tai disappeared. Miriam lifted her arms and the rope fell in waves over her shoulders. She dropped it, turned to the crowd and solemnly picked up her train. Tai, smiling and bowing, ran forth from its folds, and held out his arms to Drewena.
The crowd was charmed; but Drewena, furious, caught up the child and hurrying with him through the corridor, took him into his own room and laid him upon his own bed.
For a moment her hot cheek rested against the child who petted her, saying nothing. Then she swept into the powder room where she knew she would find Miriam. Still furious, she faced her friend.
“Miriam,” she cried, “that was a coarse trick.” Her eyes were narrowed and a drop of blood was welling out of the corner of her lip where she had bitten herself. “What made you do it?”
Miriam inhaled the smoke of her cigarette.
“We don’t think alike, Drewena,” she said reflectively at last. “There was nothing coarse in the act. It is a good trick.”
“Under your skirts, Miriam!” said Drewena, her deep blue eyes watching her friend intensely.
Miriam shrugged.
“You and I have a different attitude toward such things, I fear. I hope the child feels the way I do about it. He is quite innocent—as apparently am I.” Then for an instant Miriam’s eyes became colder than Drewena’s. “Of course, I cannot help, nor can I control your interpretations.” A dark, ugly vein showed vertically now in the center of Miriam’s forehead. Drewena’s white velvet gown seemed to turn blood-red before her.
Even in her own anger, Drewena was amazed. Surely these could not be the features of her friend! She watched Miriam as she turned and walked to the ottoman where she sat down, breathing heavily. A tremor passed through her body and she sat, looking straight ahead. Fascinated, Drewena saw the vein in Miriam’s forehead diminish at last and her features become natural again. A little frightened, she went over and put her hand on the shoulder of her friend.
“It’s just that I love both of you so much, Miriam,” she said. “I was jealous of you both. Please, forgive me.” Her hand was trembling. “And now,” she added, trying to compose herself, “I must announce Kate’s dance. Won’t you come out?—she dances divinely.”
“Later, Drewena,” Miriam said in a despondent voice. And when Drewena had gone, still looking disturbed, Miriam lay down on her back on the couch and stared at the ceiling with both eyes open wide. Her thoughts were jumbled and confused in this strange atmosphere. She had felt singular reactions. Desires that were new to her had come upon her without warning. Were her concepts changing? Or had they lain dormant, awaiting only the right moment to make her aware of another facet in her individuality?... And did this constitute a shame to God? Should the mind reject what the spirit had planted?... Was this not a possibility for every man, as well as the necessity for the cultivated group outside?... It was obscure to Miriam, lying there. Her mind was tired from these perplexing questions. Such problems as these charged without apparent reason. She stood up, held the sides of her head which now ached violently. Slowly she went to the doorway in time to hear Drewena announce Kate’s dance.
The crowd applauded vigorously and Miriam could feel again the mass excitement.
“As usual,” continued Drewena, “Kate has adapted a native dance-ritual to her own choreography. To-night she will interpret the fire dance of a tribe of Andean people.”
Drewena stepped back as Patsy came from the corridor with a smoldering, perfumed brazier which she placed upon the floor, now cleared for a space in the center. The music began, the muted drums became more prominent, and Kate walked from the shadows of the alcove to the brazier, standing quietly beside it, her eyes lifted upward, watching the smoke, her hands palm outward before her. There was a leather strap around her forehead and a leather wristlet above the left hand. On her upper arm was a metal band which had the dull gleam of copper.
The high knee movement as she circled the brazier showed the control and discipline of her deeply tanned legs, and the supple flexibility of a professional dancer. Her bare feet slapped stiffly against the wooden floor as she continued to circle the smoke which was now rising like a slender blue pillar. As she went round the coals, her body rotated while circling, so that at times she faced the low flames and at others had her back to them, her body always arched, her circled head often coming close to the flickering brazier. A soft, faun-colored wrap that looked like chamois swung from Kate’s waist; but on one side it had been cut in from the hips where the fine webbing of her dark jockstrap covered her.
Among the excited watchers, none was more affected than Beulah. She kept wiping her mouth and whispering, “My God!” to Docky. Docky, however, for once, was too fascinated to reply.
Intoxicated by the wild music and by the incense which now pervaded the room, even more by the dance itself, Kate continued her steps with more abandon, her copper body whirling with such rapidity that she seemed to be weaving amid the smoke, making it catch her enthusiasm as it leaned toward her at every angle until it spiraled upward as though part of the dance. A bolo knife with a polished bone handle rested against the nearby wall and Kate leaped toward it, picked it up swiftly and fastened the looped thong around her wrist. Then as the song of the Firebird2 grew wilder, she swung the heavy, shining blade as though cutting her way through vines and wet, tall grass, until the knife sang in the air and Kate’s slim, powerful body weaved from side to side in her savage desire to get once more to the flames. Her teeth were drawn back as though fighting with intangible yet formidable spirits, and her handsome face was set in a perfect mask of determination to get to her own beckoning god—the crimson soul of the flame—life-giving and protecting. At last she reached the genie of the fire-bowl, her face, arms and belly streaming with sweat, the bolo knife held rigidly over her head and her left hand supporting the sinews of the wrist which held it.
This time, instead of circling the brazier, she leaped over it, held herself suspended one fraction of a second before she dropped lightly on the other side, wheeled instantly and repeated the floating movement until the blur of her body became one with the smoke. Suddenly, to the horror of the guests, there was a soft whisper, like fire through damp reeds, and the odor of burning hair mixed with the scent of the pitch. As the crowd held its breath sharply, Kate let out a fierce, sensuous shout of triumph, and whirled in eccentric half-turns into the shadows of the alcove....
There was no applause. The crowd was stunned by this amazing, painful exhibition into deep silence. Docky abstractedly removed and wiped her glass eye again, and Beulah dabbed futilely at her aging face. But their attention was now quickly drawn to the corner where Roberta had been sitting. She was standing in such an imperious manner that everyone turned toward her in astonishment. The broken rays from a chandelier nearby revealed her beautiful, tragic face as she said with the elegance of contempt, “And now—let me speak!” Her resonate voice filled the deep silence, and she crossed the floor to a place where she could face the crowd more fully.
Rather nervously, Drewena hurried to her and whispered something; but Roberta’s desperate expression stopped her from speaking further and she drew back, more than ever perplexed. At this, Miriam, watching the blue fox muff attentively, walked quietly to Roberta until her eyes said, “Stop!” which Miriam did, a few paces away.
Then, in level voice and without gesture, never taking her eyes from Miriam’s face, Roberta said—
There on the sheets, my lad,
With small gold arms and hair tossed back
Most carelessly,
She bears the quality we lack.
And older, perhaps weary, I’m some sad.
Here in my arms, my lad,
With strong gold wrists and hair tossed back
In liberty,
You bear the quality I lack.
And older, perhaps weary, I’m some sad.
But in my glass, sweet lad,
I see thy dreams, thy lady’s,
And thy profligacy.
And know the quality you lack....
Yet still I’m older, perhaps weary, and some sad.
There was a buzz of disapproval as Roberta finished. “Well,” said Beulah, “we may have lived in our time, but we never carried on like that! In those pastel days,” and she tapped Docky’s arm with her fan, parting her lips with a snap, “we did carry on a bit—but this is too much! I feel like entering the philanthropies. They’re so much quieter.”
“Yes, yes,” said Docky, “I tried it once. But it’s too expensive, Beulah. And don’t expect, dear, too much of your personality. We’re getting wrinkles. Soon the lovelies won’t look at us for less than a dollar! How your quarter has worked as long as it has, is beyond me!”
Roberta had returned to the solitude of her corner when there was a terrified screech from Patsy, and Rio, completely drunken, in servant’s skirts held high above his knees, lurched into the drawing room. He stood there just inside the doorway, swaying and looking around at the gathering.
“Whores!” he shouted stridently, raising one heavy brown arm in his anger. “You lousy, campy sons-of-bitches!” He forced his risqué Robin Hood hat down to his ears, his shoulders nearly popping out of his dress, and his great legs encased in red football stockings which were rolled just beneath his hairy knees. Then he saw Miriam looking at him without amusement as she leaned against the piano. Rio walked slowly to her, his arms hanging like lead. As he approached, Miriam did not stir and there was a contemptuous look upon her face. Rio moved his lips in an obscene gesture and pretended to whimper.
“Could a old ’ooman show ’ee the sights o’ Cooney Island? I’ll do no traffic with ’ee.”
Miriam smiled, for in his hatred Rio had mimicked his character with perfection. Even the crowd began to think it was a camp when suddenly, without warning, Rio struck Miriam who fell slowly to the floor. Drewena noticed that she looked like Tai, the way she was curled. With a low scream, Drewena ran swiftly from the room while Rio looked on with contempt. But his expression changed as he saw his friend still lying open-mouthed, a little absent, upon the floor, one slippered foot thrust out from the folds of the yellow dress.
Drewena now returned silently. She was carrying a long, gilded whip. She held it firmly in her delicate hands, the barbs away from her, ready to be snapped. As Rio bent over his friend, he started to kneel. But before his knee was completely bent, Drewena brought the thorned end of the gold scourge straight down across his shoulders, the faint swish modified by Rio’s cry of pain and surprise; for as the flesh was ripped from his back there was the sound of crushed bubbles. In his agony, he rushed at the white-gowned hostess, but Drewena, as though in a fantastic ballet, dodged him and pivoted so swiftly that when Rio passed, the wrench and throb of his sickening pain as he was struck again, brought forth a groan from everyone in the room. Drewena stood poised for the next thrust, and her expression brought Rio on once more, his great hands searching for her through his agony. Again she avoided him and turned to lay the hooked rods into his lacerated flesh. Rio, in all his bravery could stand no more and fell upon his face, his arms reaching out like claws. Cool and mindful of her action, Drewena struck him again until the blood formed in small pools by his side.
Roberta still stood silently in the shadow of her corner. Docky, who had been watching her, had seen with her one alert, keen eye, a single movement and a flash of steel as Roberta withdrew her hand from her muff, then returned it stoically when Rio fell.
This time, as Drewena lifted her arm, Miriam sat up. There was no movement, no shudder from the prone figure on the floor.
“Wait, Drew!” called Miriam. “Leave the man alone!”
Drewena looked at her incredulously.
“This beast knocked you down,” she said, “and without reason.”
She turned again to strike, but Miriam arose unsteadily and held Drewena’s arm.
Drewena dropped the whip.
“Do you, then, consider this more important?” she asked nodding toward Rio who was still lying quietly, his blouse in shreds upon his blood-soaked back.
“He is my friend,” said Miriam. “We are going home.”
“Our rendezvous?” breathed Drewena.
“Will wait,” said Miriam.
Then, kneeling down by the stricken man whose face showed no expression as she turned it toward her, Miriam repeated, “It’s Martin, Rio,... Martin... we are going home.” Half lifting, half imploring, Martin got Rio to his feet, and as the man leaned heavily against him, they crossed the floor amid the horrified silence of the crowd.
Then “Boor!”... “Common!”... “Stiff!”... came to Martin’s ears as he bore the weight of his friend onward to the doorway. At last, he could stand no more of it.
“You!” he cried, turning. “You! Leave us alone!—my friend and me!”
In the hall, Martin looked at Rio’s thrashed back.
“We’d better go to my room,” he said. “Call a cab for us, Patsy.” And he threw Deane’s coat over Rio.... As they left, they could hear the sound of music and dancing.
Carrie had gone into hysterics. Her high heel had caught in her train and ripped it open. She was rushing to the powder room when Drewena saw her. The hostess followed her guest through the groups of dancers and found Carrie on the ottoman, crying brokenly. Drewena closed and locked the door. Her lips were bitter—to have revealed herself and lost her caste over a graceless Polynesian was unbearable! She went through a hidden paneled doorway into Tai’s room and lightly kissed his fingers, listening to the sweet sound of his even breathing. Then opening the door into the corridor, she called the footman who brought Patsy to her at once.
“We are leaving, Patsy,” she said. “Arrange for an early departure. We will go to Paris. Cable Jacques to meet us.”
Patsy bowed.
“May I say ‘thank God,’ Madame? I speak reverently.”
Drewena laughed, and for a moment looked into Patsy’s faithful eyes.
“Arrange things quickly,” she repeated as the attendant left.
Again Drewena tiptoed past the sleeping, tired baby and entered the powder room, closing the panel behind her and ignoring the pounding on the door.
Carrie still cried, her tears dampening the golden pillows of the couch.
“Miriam left without asking me to dance,” she kept on sobbing.
Drewena picked her up bodily and making a cradle out of her own slender arms, held the unhappy girl. Singing a soft, melodic lullaby, she rocked Carrie, thinking, “It is time once more, for me to go. Ah, Martin!—indiscriminate man!—you see beauty only through your prostitution.... How I envy you!... How I...” Drewena’s thick tears clung to her lashes and did not fall on Carrie who, now rocked asleep, held tightly to Drewena’s comforting breast.