With her mother away on a wedding-trip with Mr. Moses Feldt, Linda was
suddenly projected into the companionship of his two daughters. One,
as he had said, was light, but a different fairness from Mrs.
Condon's--richly thick, like honey; while Judith, the elder, who must
have been twenty, was dark in skin, in everything but her eyes, which
were a contrasting ashen-violet. She spoke at once of Linda's flawless
whiteness:
“A magnolia,” she said, in a deliberate dark voice; “you are quite
a gorgeous child. Do you mind my saying that your clothes are rather
quaint? They aren't inevitable, and yours ought to be that.”
They were at lunch in the Feldt dining-room, an interior of heavy
ornately carved black wood, panels of Chinese embroidery in imperial
yellow, and a neutral mauve carpet. The effect, with glittering
iridescent pyramids of glass, massive frosted repoussé silver, burnished
gold-plate and a wide table decoration of orchids and fern, was tropical
and intense. It was evident to Linda that the Feldts were very rich
indeed.
The entire apartment resembled the dining-room, while the building
itself filled a whole city block, with a garden and fountains like an
elaborate public square. Linda, however, wasn't particularly impressed
by such show; she saw that Judith and Pansy had expected that of her;
but she was determined not to exhibit a surprise that would imply any
changes in her mother's and her condition. In addition, Linda calmly
took such surroundings for granted. Her primary conception of possible
existence was elegance; its necessity had so entered into her being that
it had departed from her consciousness.
“I must take you to Lorice,” Judith continued; “she will know better
than any one else what you ought to have. You seem terribly pure--at
first. But you're not a snowdrop; oh, no--something very rare in a
conservatory. Much better style than your mother.”
“I hope you won't mind Judith,” Pansy put in; “she's always like that.”
A silence followed in which they industriously dipped the leaves of
mammoth artichokes into a buttery sauce. Linda, as customary, said very
little, she listened with patient care to the others and endeavored to
arrive at conclusions. She liked Pansy, who was as warm and simple as
her father. Judith was harder to understand. She was absorbed in color
and music, and declared that ugliness gave her a headache at once.
Altogether, Linda decided, she was rather silly, especially about men;
and at times her emotions would rise beyond control until she wept in a
thin hysterical gasping.
The room where, mostly, they sat was small, but with a high ceiling,
and hung in black, with pagoda-like vermilion chairs. The light, in the
evening, was subdued; and Pansy and Judith, in extremely clinging vivid
dresses, the former's hair piled high in an amber mass and Judith's
drawn severely across her ears, were lovely. Linda thought of the
tropical butterflies of the river Amazon, of orchids like those always
on the dining-room table. A miniature grand piano stood against the
drapery, and Judith often played. Linda learned to recognize some of
the composers. Pansy liked best the modern waltzes; Judith insisted that
Richard Strauss was incomparable; but Linda developed an overwhelming
preference for Gluck. The older girl insisted that this was an
affectation; for a while she tried to confuse Linda's knowledge; but
finally, playing the airs of “Orpheus and Eurydice,” she admitted that
the latter was sincere.
“They sound so cool,” Linda said in a clear and decided manner.
There was a man with them, and he shook his head in a mock sadness.
“So young and yet so formal. If, with the rest, you had Judith's
temperament, you would be the most irresistible creature alive. For see,
my dear child, as it is you stir neither tenderness nor desire; you are
remote and perfect, and faintly wistful. I can't imagine being human or
even comfortable with you about. Then, too, you have too much wisdom.”
“She is frightful,” Pansy agreed; “she's never upset nor her hair a
sight; and, above all else, Linda won't tell you a thing.”
“Some day,” Judith informed them from the rippling whisper of the piano,
“she will be magnificently loved.”
“Certainly,” the man continued; “but what will Linda, Linda Condon, give
in return?”
“It's a mistake to give much,” Linda said evenly.
“No, no, no!” Judith cried. “Give everything; spend every feeling, every
nerve.”
“You are remarkable, of course; almost no women have the courage of
their emotions.” His name was Reynold Chase, a long thin grave young
man in a dinner coat, who wrote brilliant and successful comedies. “Yet
Linda isn't parsimonious.” He turned to her. “Just what are you? What do
you think of love?”
“I haven't thought about it much,” she replied slowly. “I'm not sure
that I know what it means. At least it hasn't anything to do with
marriage--”
“Ah!” he interrupted her.
Her usually orderly mind grew confused; it eddied as though with the
sound of the piano. “It is not marriage,” she vaguely repeated her
mother's instruction. Reynold Chase supported her.
“That destroys it,” he asserted. “This love is as different as possible
from the ignominious impulse eternally tying the young into knots. It's
anti-social.”
“How stupid you are, Reynold,” Pansy protested. “If you want to use
those complicated words take Judith into the drawing-room. I'm sure
Linda is dizzy, too.”
The latter's mental confusion lingered; she had a strong sense of having
heard Reynold Chase say these strange things long before. Judith left
the piano, sat beside him, and he lightly kissed her. A new dislike of
Judith Feldt deepened in Linda's being. She had no reason for it, but
suddenly she felt absolutely opposed to her. The manner in which Judith
rested against the man by her was very distasteful. It offended Linda
inexplicably; she wanted to draw into an infinity of distance from all
contact with men and life.
She didn't even want to make one of those marriages that had nothing to
do with love, but was only a sensible arrangement for the securing
of gowns and velvet hangings and the luxury of enclosed automobiles.
Suddenly she felt lonely, and hoped that her mother would come back
soon.