Would he come early? She had forgotten to ask it. Would he? For, in that event--and considering his inclination to take her into his arms--she decided to leave off the orchids until the more strenuous rites of friendship had been accomplished.
She was carrying the orchids and the long pin attached, in her left hand, when the sound of the doorbell filled her with abrupt and delightful premonitions. She ventured a glance over the banisters, then returned hastily to the living room, where he discovered her and did exactly what she had feared.
Her left hand, full of orchids, rested on his shoulder; her cool, fresh lips rested on his. Then she retreated, inviting inspection of the rosy dinner gown; and fastened her orchids while he was admiring it.
Her guests began to arrive before either was quite ready, so engrossed were they in happy gossip. And Palla looked up in blank surprise that almost amounted to vexation when the bell announced that their tete-a-tete was ended.
Shotwell had met the majority of Palla"s dinner guests. Seated on her right, he received from his hostess information concerning some of those he did not know.
"That rather talkative boy with red hair is Larry Rideout," she said in a low voice. "He edits a weekly called _The Coming Race_. The Post Office authorities have refused to pa.s.s it through the mails. It"s rather advanced, you know."
"Who is the girl on his right--the one with the chalky map?"
"Questa Terrett. Don"t you think her pallor is fascinating?"
"No. What particular stunt does she perform?"
"Don"t be flippant. She writes."
"Ads?"
"Jim! She writes poems. Haven"t you seen any of them?"
"I don"t think so."
"They"re rather modern poems. The lines don"t rhyme and there"s no metrical form," explained Palla.
"Are they any good?"
"They"re a little difficult to understand. She leaves out so many verbs and nouns----"
"I know. It"s a part of her disease----"
"Jim, please be careful. She is taken seriously----"
"Taken seriously ill? There, dear, I won"t guy your guests. What an absolutely deathly face she has!"
"She is considered beautiful."
"She has the profile of an Egyptian. She"s as dead-white as an Egyptian leper----"
"Hush!"
"Hush it is, sweetness! Who"s the good-looking chap over by Ilse?"
"Stanley Wardner."
"And his star trick?"
"He"s a secessionist sculptor."
"What"s that?"
"He is one of the ultra-modern men who has seceded from the Society of American Sculptors to form, with a few others, a new group."
"Is he any good?"
"Well, Jim, I don"t know," she said candidly. "I don"t think I am quite in sympathy with his work."
"What sort is it?"
"If I understand him, he is what is termed, I believe, a concentrationist.
For instance, in a nude figure which he is exhibiting in his studio, it"s all a rough block of marble except, in the middle of the upper part, there is a nose."
"A nose!"
"Really, it is beautifully sculptured," insisted Palla.
"But--good heavens!--isn"t there any other anatomical feature to that block of marble?"
"I explained that he is a concentrationist. His school believes in concentrating on a single feature only, and in rendering that feature as minutely and perfectly as possible."
Jim said: "He looks as sane as a broker, too. You never can tell, can you, sweetness?"
He glanced at several other people whose features were not familiar, but Palla"s explanations of her friends had slightly discouraged him and he made no further inquiries.
Vanya Tchernov was there, dreamy and sweet-mannered; Estridge sat by Ilse, looking a trifle careworn, as though hospital work were taking it out of him. Marya Lanois was there, too, with her slightly slanting green eyes and her tiger-red hair--attracting from him a curious sort of stealthy admiration, inexplicable to him because he knew he was so entirely in love with Palla.
A woman of forty sat on his right--he promptly forgot her name each time he heard it--who ate fastidiously and chose birth-control as the subject for conversation. And he dodged it in vain, for her conversation had become a monologue, and he sat fiddling with his food, very red, while the silky voice, so agreeable in pitch and intonation, slid smoothly on.
Afterward Palla explained that she was a celebrated sociologist, but Jim remained shy of her.
Other people came in after dinner. Vanya seated himself at the piano and played from one of his unpublished scores. Ilse sang two Scandinavian songs in her fresh, wholesome, melodious voice--the song called _Ygdrasil_, and the _Song of Thokk_. Wardner had brought a violin, and he and Vanya accompanied Marya"s Asiatic songs, but with some difficulty on the sculptor"s part, as modern instruments are scarcely adapted to the sort of Russian music she chose to sing.
Marya had a way, when singing, which appeared almost insolent. Seated, or carelessly erect, her supple figure fell into lines of indolently provocative grace; and the warm, golden notes welling from her throat seemed to be flung broadcast and indifferently to her listeners, as alms are often flung, without interest, toward abstract poverty and not to the poor breathing thing at one"s elbow.
She sang, in her preoccupied way, one of her savage, pentatonic songs, more Mongol than Cossack; then she sang an impudent _burlatskiya_ lazily defiant of her listeners; then a so-called "dancing song," in which there was little restraint in word or air.
The subtly infernal enchantment of girl and music was felt by everybody; but several among the illuminati and the fair ultra-modernettes had now reached their limit of breadth and tolerance, and were becoming bored and self-conscious, when abruptly Marya"s figure straightened to a lovely severity, her mouth opened sweetly as a cherub"s, and, looking up like a little, ruddy bird, she sang one of the ancient _Kolyadki_, Vanya alone understanding as his long, thin fingers wandered instinctively into an improvised accompaniment:
I
"Young tears Your fears disguise; He is not coming!
Sweet lips Let slip no sighs; Cease, heart, your drumming!
He is not coming, [A]_Lada!_ He is not coming.
_Lada oy Lada!_
"Gaze not in wonder,-- Yonder no rider comes; Hark how the kettle-drums Mock his hoofs" thunder; Hark to their thudding, Pretty b.r.e.a.s.t.s budding,-- Setting the Buddhist bells Clanking and banging,-- Wheels at the hidden wells Clinking and clanging!
(_Lada oy Lada!_) Plough the flower under; Tear it asunder!