Part 7 (1/2)

Her manner, Pansy specially complained, was not intimate and inviting; in her room Linda usually closed the door; the frank community of the sisters was distasteful to her. She demanded an extraordinary amount of personal privacy. Linda never consulted Judith's opinion about her clothes, nor exchanged the more significant aspects of feeling. Alone in a bed-chamber furnished in silvery Hungarian ash, her bed a pale quilted luxury with Madeira linen crusted in monograms, without head or foot boards, and a dressing-table noticeably bare, she would deliberately and delicately prepare for the night.

While Judith's morning bath steamed with the softness and odor of lavender crystals, Linda slipped into water almost cold. This, with her clear muslins and heavy black silk stockings, her narrow unornamented slippers, represented the perfection of niceness.

There were others than Pansy, however, who commented on what they called her superiority--the young men who appeared in the evening. A number of them, cousins of the Feldt dinner parties or more casual, tried to engage her sympathies in their persons and prospects. It was a society of early maturity. But, without apparent effort, she discouraged them, princ.i.p.ally by her serene lack of interest. It was a fundamental part of her understanding of things that younger men were unprofitable; she liked far better the contemporaries of Moses Feldt.

Reynold Chase had ceased his visits, but his place had been taken by another and still another emotionally gifted man. The present one was dark and imperturbable: they knew little of him beyond the facts that he had been a long while in the Orient, that his manner and French were unsurpa.s.sed, and that practically every considerable creative talent in New York was entertained in his rooms.

Judith had been to one of his parties; and, the following morning in bed, she told Pansy and Linda the most remarkable things.

”It would never do for Pansy,” she concluded; ”but I must get Markue to ask you sometime, Linda. How old are you now? Well, that's practically sixteen, and you are very grown up. You would be quite sensational, in one of your plain white frocks, in his apartment. You'd have to promise not to tell your mother, though. She thinks I'm leading you astray now--the old dear. Does she think I am blind? I met a man last week, a friend of father's, who used to know her. Of course he wouldn't say anything, men are such idiots about that--like ostriches with their pasts buried and all the feathers sticking out--but there was a champagne expression in his smile.”

Linda wondered, later, if she'd care to go to a party of Markue's. There was a great deal of drinking at such affairs; and though she rather liked cordials, creme de the and Grand Marnier, even stronger things flavored with limes and an occasional frigid c.o.c.ktail, she disliked--from a slight experience--men affected by drink. Judith had called her a const.i.tutional prude; this, she understood, was a term of reproach; and she wondered if, applied to her, it were just.

Usually it meant a religious person or one fussy about the edge of her skirt; neither of which she ever considered. She didn't like to sit in a corner and be hugged--even that she could now a.s.sert with a degree of knowledge--but it wasn't because she was shocked. Nothing, she told herself gravely, shocked her; only certain acts and moments annoyed her excessively. It was as if her mind were a crisp dress with ribbons which she hated to have mussed or disarranged.

Linda didn't take the trouble to explain this. Now that her mother had withdrawn from her into a perpetual and uncomfortable politeness she confided in no one. She would have been at a loss to put her complicated sensations and thoughts into words. Mr. Moses Feldt, the only one to whom she could possibly talk intimately, would be upset by her feelings.

He would give her a hug and the next day bring up a new present from his pocket.

Her clothes, with the entire support of Lorice, were all delicate in fabric, mostly white with black sashes, and plainly ruffled. She detested the gray crepe de Chine from which Judith's undergarments were made and the colored embroidery of Pansy's; while she ignored scented toilet-waters and extracts. Markue, in finally asking her to a party at his rooms, said that there she would resemble an Athenian marble, of the un-painted epoch, in the ballet of Scheherazade.

XIII

”There's nothing special to say about Markue's parties,” Judith, dressing, told Linda. ”You will simply have to take what comes your way.

There is always some one serious at them, if you insist, as usual, on dignity.” She stood slim and seductive, like a perverse pierrot, before the oppressive depths of a black mirror. Linda had finished her preparations for the evening. There was no departure from her customary blanched exactness. She studied her reflection across Judith's shoulder; her intense blue eyes, under the level blot of her bang, were grave on the delicate pallor of her face.

In the taxi, slipping rapidly down-town, Linda was conscious of a slight unusual disturbance of her indifference. This had nothing to do with whether or not she'd be a success; her own social demands were so small that any considerable recognition of her was unimportant. Her present feeling came from the fact that to-night, practically, she was making her first grown-up appearance in the world, the world from which she must select the materials of her happiness and success. To-night she would have an opportunity to put into being all that--no matter how firmly held--until now had been but convictions.

Her interest was not in whom or what she might meet, but in herself.

Judith, smoking a cigarette in a mist of silver fox, was plainly excited. ”I like Markue awfully,” she admitted.

”Does he care for you?” Linda asked.

”That,” said Judith, ”I can't make out--if he likes me or if it's just anonymous woman. I wish it were the first, Linda.” Her voice was shadowed; suddenly, in spite of her youth and exhilaration, she seemed haggard and spent. Linda recognized this in a cold scrutiny. Privately she decided that the other was a fool--she didn't watch her complexion at all.

The motor turned west in the low Forties and stopped before a high narrow stone facade with a ma.s.sive griffon-guarded door. Judith led the way directly into the elevator and designated Markue's floor. It was at the top of the building, where he met them with his impenetrable courtesy and took them into a bare room evidently planned for a studio.

There were an empty easel, the high blank dusty expanse of the skylight, and chairs with the somber hats and coats of men and women's wraps like the glistening shed skins of brilliant snakes.

They turned through the hall to an interior more remarkable than anything Linda could have imagined; it seemed to her very high, without windows and peaked like a tent. Draperies of intricate Eastern color hung in long folds. There were no chairs, but low broad divans about the walls, a thick carpet with inlaid stands in the center laden with boxes of cigarettes, sugared exotic sweets and smoking incense. It was so dim and full of thick scent, the shut effect was so complete, that for a moment Linda felt painfully oppressed; it seemed impossible to breathe in the wavering bluish atmosphere.

Markue, who had appeared sufficiently familiar outside, now had a strange portentous air; the gleams of his quick black eyes, the dusky tone of his cheeks, his impa.s.sive grace, startled her. New York was utterly removed: the taxi that had brought Judith and her, the swirling traffic of Columbus Circle and smooth undulations of Fifth Avenue, were lost with a different life. She saw, however, the open door to another room full of clear light, and her self-possession rapidly returned.

Judith--as she had threatened--at once deserted her; and Linda found an inconspicuous corner of a divan.

There were, perhaps, twenty people in the two rooms, and each one engaged her attention. A coffee-colored woman was sitting beyond her, clad in loose red draperies to which were sewed s.h.i.+ning patterns of what she thought was gold. Markue was introducing Judith, and the seated figure smiled pleasantly with a flash of beautiful teeth and the supple gesture of a raised brown palm. That, Linda decided, was the way she shook hands. Two dark-skinned men, one in conventional evening dress, were with her; they had small fine features and hair like carved ebony.

Linda had never before been at an affair with what she was forced to call colored people; instinctively she was antagonistic and superior.

She turned to a solemn masculine presence with a ruffled s.h.i.+rt and high black stock; he was talking in a resonant voice and with dramatic gestures to a woman with a white face and low-drawn hair. Linda was fascinated by the latter, dressed in a soft clinging dull garnet.

It wasn't her clothes, although they were remarkable, that held her attention, but the woman's mouth. Apparently, it had no corners. Like a little band of crimson rubber, or a ring of vivid flame, it s.h.i.+fted and changed in the oddest shapes. It was an unhappy mouth, and made her think of pain; but perhaps not so much that as hunger ... not for food, Linda was certain. What did she want?