“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 façade with a massive 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 impassive 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 shining 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 shirt 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 shifted
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?
There was a light appealing laugh from another seated on the floor in a
floating black dinner dress with lovely ankles in delicate Spanish lace
stockings; her head was thrown back for the whisper of a heavy man with
ashen hair, a heavenly scarf and half-emptied glass.
Her bare shoulders, Linda saw, were as white as her own, as white but
more sloping. The other's hair, though, was the loveliest red possible.
The entire woman, relaxed and laughing in the perfumery and swimming
shadows, was irresistible. A man with a huge nose and blank eyes, his
hands disfigured with extraordinary rings, momentarily engaged her.
Then, at the moment when she saw an inviting and correctly conventional
youth, he crossed and sat at her side.
“Quite a show,” he said in the manner she had expected and approved. The
glow of his cigarette wavered over firmly cut lips. “We've just come to
New York,” he continued. “I don't know any one here but Markue, do you?”
Linda explained her own limitations. “The Victory's fine and familiar.”
She followed his gaze to where a winged statue with flying drapery was
set on a stand. She had seen it before, but without interest. Now it
held her attention. It wasn't a large cast, not over three feet high,
but suddenly Linda thought that it was the biggest thing in the room; it
seemed to expand as she watched it.
Beside the Victory, in a glass case with an enclosed concealed light,
was a statue, greenish gray, a few inches tall, with a sneering
placidity of expression as notable as the sweep of the other white
fragment. “That's Chinese,” her companion decided; “it looks as old as
lust.” There was the stir of new arrivals--a towering heavy man with
a slight woman in emerald satin. “There's Pleydon, the sculptor,” the
youth told her animatedly. “I've seen him at the exhibitions. It must be
Susanna Noda, the Russian singer, with him. He's a tremendous swell.”