"We have?" Lucy faltered, withdrawing her arm.
One would have to go slow with the cagey little bitch. "Opal Allwood tells me she knew you in Denver."
"I didn't know her well. She's the sister of a boy I knew. In fact Mother and I didn't know many people in Denver, we lived in a roominghouse in the old section." As she said this, Lucy remembered seeing made-up girls coming and going into an old brick mansion from where, later at night, had come pianola music from its shade-drawn interior.
She looked at Horta Cornwallis and saw she was scared. Horta was not only the voice on the telephone at the Crofter but the Madam at the Kelway mansion! The poor old thing thinks I'll tell but I never will. I can't say I know you were a Madam but I won't tell.
"I am glad to see you two getting to know each other better," Figente, coming up, approved.
"Figente," Vedder waylaid him, "who did the painting of the pears? I didn't recognize the painter."
"Good, isn't it?"
"Who is he?"
"He's around here somewhere. I'll introduce you."
The two men started across the room, leaving Lucy trapped with Horta. I just know I'll never get to speak to Vermillion alone tonight, she fumed.
Not seeing Vermillion, Figente used his search as a pretext to get Vida away from Welford's son. "Aren't you expected home for Christmas, Rad?"
"I'm taking an early train," the young man said resentfully.
"Remember me to the family," beamed Figente, as if saying goodbye, and saying to Vida, as if Rad had left, "Boswell, do see if you can find Vermillion."
Rad's intention of going to Philadelphia had come as a surprise and Vida was glad she had resisted his plea to leave with him. He had turned out to be nicer than her first impression of him. He wasn't a playboy but a Princeton man with playwriting ambitions whose family had known people like Henry James and Edith Wharton. He knew Scott Fitzgerald and, next to Vermillion, was the most interesting man she had met in New York."
"I'll phone you next week," he said, looking into her eyes.
What a wonderful Merry Christmas!
