the "names" scattered at Figente's parties he had had an inkling that Figente was someone but not really society page top-bracket. Ray hadn't been boasting.
Figente sensed his protege's awe, and it added to his feeling of reassurance and well being. He had hesitated to brave a first public appearance since the unpleasantness of the cabinet minister's imbecilic son five years ago when he had been ordered by the police to leave France in twenty-four hours. However, the respectful warmth of the greetings tonight was in the nature of a triumph. The intervening years apparently had misted his mishap with a romantic glow in the memories of friends who at the time had cut him. Tonight was proof, once again, that society admired anyone who could brazen out what it hypocritically disapproved. He must remember to point this out to Lucy. It was a pity that, able either to make a good marriage or to be a successful courtesan, she was so deficient in concentration, spreading thin her favors. Perhaps because she was so young she could not envision growing old. Now when she should be taking Lyle from Clarissa she looked only at the Hindu dancer with Nicholas Allwood and his new wife.
"Who is the woman with Nick Allwood?" Lucy asked about the prettyish thin woman who was vaguely familiar but returned her glance with an unfriendly stare.
"It must be his new wife. While Grace was in Reno divorcing him, he went to do a house in Oklahoma for an oil tycoon. He did the wife too. She divorced the oil man. They married, I imagine, she to get into society, he to spite Grace who married a movie actor the day after her divorce."
"Grace isn't the only one who thinks he's a stuffed shirt," Lucy commented. "The girls at the show say that sober he's too scared to have fun, and drunk he gets nasty and practically goes into retirement while he adds up the bill."
This portrait of Nick Allwood, a relative of his sister's husband, delighted Figente. Grasping the table with pudgy hands he pushed himself backwards to give vent to a long squeak, like that of a pricked toy balloon.
The band began Irving Berlin's latest.
"All alone," Tessie sang, her eyes inviting Lyle. Even if he did eventually marry Clarissa there would be no reason to let that stand in the way, now that he was rid of Claudel. Marrying Clarissa was virtually an incestuous merging of financial interests since they had been brought up together from childhood. A nitwit could see
