Eva Gilson had been in Brooklyn within the month, and in a passion of

remembrance of home, Claire cried, "Oh, do tell me about everybody."

"I had such a good time with Amy Dorrance," said Mrs. Gilson. "Of course

Amy is a little dull, but she's such an awfully good sort and---- We did

have the jolliest party one afternoon. We went to lunch at the Ritz,

and a matinée, and we saw such an interesting man--Gene is frightfully

jealous when I rave about him--I'm sure he was a violinist--simply an

exquisite thing he was--I wanted to kiss him. Gene will now say, 'Why

didn't you?'"

And Gene said, "Well, why didn't you?" and Claire laughed, and her

toes felt warm and pink and good, and she was perfectly happy, and she

murmured, "It would be good to hear a decent violinist again. Oh! What

had George Worlicht been doing, when you were home?"

"Don't you think Georgie is wonderful?" fluttered Mrs. Gilson. "He makes

me rue my thirty-six sad years. I think I'll adopt him. You know, he

almost won the tennis cup at Long Branch."

Georgie had a little mustache and an income, just enough income to

support the little mustache, and he sang inoffensively, and was always

winning tennis cups--almost--and he always said, at least once at every

party, "The basis of savoir faire is knowing how to be rude to the

right people." Fire-enamored and gliding into a perfumed haze of

exquisite drowsiness, Claire saw Georgie as heroic and wise. But the

firelight got into her eyes, and her lids wouldn't stay open, and in her

ears was a soft humming as of a million bees in a distant meadow

golden-spangled--and Gene was helping her upstairs; sleepiness submerged

her like bathing in sweet waters; she fumbled at buttons and hooks and

stays, let things lie where they fell--and of all that luxury nothing

was more pleasant than the knowledge that she did not have to take

precautions against the rats, mice, cockroaches, and all their obscene

little brothers which--on some far-off fantastic voyaging when she had

been young and foolish--she seemed to remember having found in her own

room. Then she was sinking into a bed like a tide of rainbow-colored

foam, sinking deep, deep, deep---And it was morning, and she perceived that the purpose of morning light

was to pick out surfaces of mahogany and orange velvet and glass, and

that only an idiot would ever leave this place and go about begging

dirty garage men to fill her car with stinking gasoline and oil.

The children were at breakfast--children surely not of the same species

as the smeary-cheeked brats she had seen tumbling by roadsides along the

way--sturdy Mason, with his cap of curls, and Virginia, with bobbed

ash-blond hair prim about her delicate face. They curtsied, and in

voices that actually had intonations they besought her, "Oh, Cousin

Claire, would you pleasssssse tell us about drive-to-the-coast?"




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