"Why that, in Heaven's name?"
"You have offended him."
"Dear me! How?"
"By what you said at the house the other night. About the costumes, you
know."
"Nonsense. How could that have reached him?"
"Those things do get around. Do you know what he's going to do? He's
going to cut your comb. My aunt--she cried like anything."
To Truesdale the girl's tone seemed preposterously confidential. "You
were in the wrong," she seemed to imply; "but I am on your side for all
that."
"Ouf!" said Truesdale; "this comes of trenching on Biblical ground. I'll
never quote scripture again."
Truesdale had gone to the Belden house in pursuance of the invitation
extended at his mother's own tea-table. Eliza Marshall had made a faint
effort to dissuade him; despite Mrs. Belden's presence at her own
function, his going seemed, in one way or another, too much like an
excursion into the enemy's country. But the occasion was a fancy-dress
ball, and Truesdale declared himself much too curious to remain away. "I
must go," he said, and at once took steps to equip himself for this
voyage of discovery.
He wore the dress of a Spanish grandee of the early seventeenth
century--he recalled the Spaniards as famous explorers. He was in black
throughout, save for the white lace of his wide collar and cuffs, and for
the dark purple lining of his mantle. If the Beldens, for their part, had
costumed themselves half so discreetly, he would never have fallen from
their good graces. But Statira Belden (keeping her own given name in
view) had based her costume upon one of the old French tapestries--the
Family of Darius at the Feet of Alexander; you may see the original, a
Veronese, in the National Gallery. She had counterfeited the distressed
queen by flowing robes and pearls strung through her yellow hair. She had
revivified and heightened the faded ideal of the oldtime artist, and
incidentally she had extinguished every other woman in the room.
But the difficulty would still have been avoided had not Belden himself
so far lapsed from discretion as to put himself forward in the guise of
Shylock. It mended matters little that he had abandoned the costume
within half an hour after donning it. Thus it was that Truesdale saw him
for the first time in four or five years; the young man had completely
disdained, thus far, to visit the store. With eyes freshened by long
absence, and wits sharpened by contact with the world, he saw his
father's partner in a dress which seemed to throw into greater prominence
every lineament of his face and every trait of his character. The young
man instantly doubted, mistrusted him. His Hebraic garments suggested
another character held in still lower esteem. Truesdale, at a certain
stage of the entertainment, observed his host and hostess in momentary
conjunction on the threshold of the drawing-room; it was then that he
uttered his little jest, whimsically careless of accuracy and loftily
indifferent to outlying ears.
"Ananias and Statira," he said, and his words travelled through the house
like escaping gas.
"They're awfully offended," said Gladys, continuing her confidential
tone. "You can't come there any more--I don't believe. I'm so glad to
have seen you here--who knows where I shall ever see you again? Why
wouldn't you talk to me any, that first time? Why were you so long in
asking me to dance to-night?"
She seemed to be pushing the claim of proprietorship first advanced at
the Belden ball.
"Well, I hope I've talked enough since."
"But where shall we talk together next time? I don't believe you can come
to the house," she repeated.
She seemed to be drawing attention romantically to obstacles in the
way--in their way--and to be calling on him to remove them.
"Perhaps they won't let me see you again. Perhaps they're offended by my
having danced with you here." She was adding to the barricade, but he was
bold and resourceful enough to level it.
"Ouf!" thought Truesdale. "Girls--they're alike, every one of 'em, after
all!"