Irene’s room was less vast and shadowy. In place of brocade the windows
were curtained with white stuff. In one corner stood a _prie dieu_
before a little paint and plaster image of the Virgin and child--all
blue and pink and gilt,--which Lily had sent her sister from Florence.
The bed was small and narrow and the white table standing near by was
covered with books and papers neatly arranged--the paraphernalia of
Irene’s work among the people of the Flats. Here Lily discovered her
when she came in, flushed and radiant, to sit on the edge of the white
bed and talk with her sister until the guests arrived.
She found Irene at the white table, the neat piles of books and papers
pushed aside to make room for a white tray laden with food, for Irene
was having dinner alone in her room. There had been no question of her
coming to the ball. “I couldn’t bear it,” she told her mother. “I would
be miserable. I don’t want to come. Why do you want to torture me?” She
had fallen, of late, into using the most exaggerating words, out of all
proportion with truth or dignity. But Julia Shane, accustomed more and
more to yielding to the whims of her younger daughter, permitted her to
remain away.
“Have you anything to read?” began Lily. “Because if you haven’t, my
small trunk is full of books.”
“I’ve plenty, and besides, I’m going out.”
“Where?” asked Lily, suddenly curious.
“To Welcome House. It’s my night to teach. I should think you would have
remembered that.” Her voice sounded weary and strained. She turned to
her sister with a look of disapproval, so intense that it seemed to
accuse Lily of some unspeakable sin.
“I didn’t remember,” Lily replied. “How should I?” And then rising she
went to her sister’s side and put one arm about her shoulders, a
gesture of affection which appeared to inspire a sudden abhorrence in
the woman, for she shivered suddenly at the touch of the warm bare arm.
“You shouldn’t go out to-night. You are too tired!”
“I must go,” Irene replied. “They’re counting on me.”
“What are you eating?...” remarked Lily, picking up a bit of cake from
the tray, “Peas, potatoes, rice, dessert, milk.... Why you’ve no meat,
Irene. You should eat meat. It is what you need more than anything.
You’re too pale.”
Irene’s pale brow knitted into a frown. “I’ve given it up,” she said.
“I’m not eating meat any longer.”
“And why not?” Lily moved away from her and stood looking down with the
faintest of mocking smiles. The transparent cheek of her sister flushed
slightly.
“Because I don’t believe in it. I believe it’s wrong.”
“Well, I’m going to speak to Mama about it. It’s nonsense. You’ll kill
yourself with such a diet. Really, Irene....” Her voice carried a note
of irritation, but she got no further for Irene turned on her suddenly,
like a beaten dog which after long abuse snaps suddenly at the offending
hand.
“Why can’t you leave me in peace? You and Mama treat me like a child. I
am a grown woman. I want to do as I please. I am harming no one but
myself ... no one.... I’m sick of it, I tell you. I’m sick of it!”
And suddenly she began to weep, softly and hysterically, her thin
shoulders shaking as the sobs tore her body. “I want to go away,” she
moaned. “I want to be alone, where I can think and pray. I want to be
alone!” Her sobbing was at once pitiful and terrible, the dry, parched
sobbing of a misery long pent up. For a moment Lily stood helplessly by
her side and then, all at once, she went down on her knees in the
peacock blue gown and put her lovely bare arms about her sister,
striving to comfort her. The effort failed strangely. Irene only drew
away and sobbed the more. “If you would only let me have peace ... I
could find it alone!”
Lily said nothing but knelt by her sister’s side kissing and caressing
the thin white hands until Irene’s sobbing subsided a little and she
fell forward among the books and papers, burying her head in her arms.
The misery of the soul and spirit in some way appalled Lily. She watched
her sister with a look of bewilderment in her eyes as if she had
discovered all at once a world of which she had been ignorant up to now.
The spectacle stifled quickly the high spirits of a moment before. The
bawdy French ballads were forgotten. She had become suddenly grave and
serious, the lines in her beautiful face grown hard. She was sitting on
the floor, her head in Irene’s lap, when a knock and the sound of her
name roused her.
“Miss Lily,” came the mulatto woman’s voice, “Mis’ Shane says the guests
are a-coming and you must come down.”
“All right Sarah.... I’ll be down at once.”
Lily, struggling with the tight satin dress, rose slowly, kissed her
sister and said, “Please, dear, stay home to-night and rest.”
But Irene, still sobbing softly as if entranced by the sensual
satisfaction of weeping, did not answer her. She remained leaning over
the table, her face buried in her arms. But she was more quiet now, with
the voluptuous stillness of one who has passed through a great emotional
outburst.
Lily, once more before the mirror in her own room, rearranged her
ruffled hair listening to the murmur of talk that arose from the well of
the stairs. It was not until she had fastened the pin set with
brilliants for a second time that she discovered with sudden horror that
the peacock blue gown was split and ripped at one side from the arm to
the waist. In the sudden outburst of affection for her sister, she had
flung herself to her knees abandoning all thought of vanity. The gown
was ruined.
From below stairs the murmur grew in volume as carriage after carriage
arrived. Lily swore beneath her breath in French, tore off the gown and
brought from her closet another of a pale yellow-green, the color of
chartreuse. The process of dressing began all over again and in half an
hour, after the mulatto woman had called twice and been sent away and
the guests had gone in to dinner, Lily stood once more before the
mirror, radiant and beautiful. The gown was cut lower than the one she
had tossed aside, and the yellow-green blended with the tawny red of her
hair so that there was something nude and voluptuous in her appearance.
The smile returned to her face, a smile which seemed to say, “The Town
will see something the like of which it has never seen before.”
Before going down she went to Irene’s room once more, only to find it
dark and empty. Clad in the gray suit and the plain black hat Irene had
made her way silently to the stairs at the back of the house and thence
through the gallery that led past the drawing-room windows into the dead
park. The austere and empty chamber appeared to rouse a sudden shame in
Lily, for she returned to her room before descending the long stairs and
took from the trunk a great fan of black ostrich feathers to shield her
bare breasts alike from the stares of the impudent and the disapproving.
The ball was a great success. The orchestra, placed in the little alcove
by the gallery, played a quadrille followed by waltzes, two-steps and
polkas. Until ten o’clock the carriages made their way along Halsted
street past the Mills and the squalid houses through the wrought iron
gates into the park; and at midnight they began to roll away again
carrying the guests to their homes. Lily, all graciousness and charm,
moved among the dancers distributing her favors equitably save in the
single instance of Willie Harrison, who looked so downcast and
prematurely old in his black evening clothes that she danced with him
three times and sat out a waltz, and a polka. And all the Town, ignorant
of the truth, whispered that Willie’s chances once more appeared good.
Ellen Tolliver was there, in a dress made at home by her mother, and she
spent much of the evening by the side of her aunt Julia who sat in black
jet and amethysts at one end of the drawing-room leaning on her stick
and looking for all the world like a wicked duchess. At the sound of the
music and the sight of the dancers, the old gleam returned for a little
time to her tired eyes.
Ellen was younger than the other guests and knew most of them only by
sight but she had partners none the less, for she was handsome despite
her badly made gown and her absurd pompadour, and she danced with a
barbaric and energetic grace. When she was not dancing her demeanor
carried no trace of the drooping wall-flower. She regarded the dancers
with a expression of defiance and scorn. None could have taken her for a
poor relation.