Doyle, precisionist, skeptic, Irishly, in the Anatole France manner, was serious. Still a lot was going on in the arts that was incomprehensible. Dada, and so on. For that matter Anatole France, he had read, was out of date—the young writers of Paris had demonstrated against him. He selected from the pigeonholes of his readings the proper reply. "One has to look at things in a new way. Even literate mental processes are corrupted by what has been done. At a sculpture exhibition in Paris recently one of the most admired things was a pissoir."
"Are they still showing that in Paris? There was one in the New York Armory Show in 1913. It really was quite beautiful."
It was apparent Cynski had no intention of releasing the guests.
"I am gratified by your appreciation, I will be pleased to repeat Universal Langidge later. But now," he proclaimed, "I have another world première. I present to you a Cubist Ballet by a company of new artists."
The audience perked up. Ballet girls exhibited their legs to the crotch, and the boys gloved testicles and behinds.
There was considerable commotion back of the gold paper screens but nothing happened except recurrent beseechings of patience from Cynski.
To Lucy the word Cubist presaged something so up-to-date and thus remarkable that she hoped her idea of a Laurencin Ballet would not be greeted as old hat when presented.
"Did you give your mother the summer ermine?" Vida asked as they waited.
"Sure. She looks too cute for words in it. I hope she'll have fun in it. Wait until you see the negligee she gave me. Georgette crepe and marabou, like something in a trousseau. I'll have to wear it to please her. I said I'd rather come home tonight for a while but she wouldn't have it. She enjoys parties I go to more than I do. I try to make them seem exciting. She'll love—here comes someone."
A small blackbird of a woman in a rusty high-collared dress sneaked onto the piano stool and with spidery fingers clawed the opening bars of the Poldini Doll Dance, to which Lucy had danced at the Bison Ball, and five little girls ranging from six to eight in skimpy frayed ballet skirts ran out and became entangled in exchanges concerned with a rose. They were followed by two buxom young women in Russian peasant dress, balancing on their braided heads crowns of flags of the nations, who concluded the ballet with an earnest Kopak. This spectacle stunned the audience, though
