told me. Then Figente got Simone and Jacques together and persuaded them to make up. They sailed last week in the Berengaria. But Figente has given Hal an apartment up on Madison Avenue to make it up to him."
"I knew Simone sailed. I phoned goodbye and sent a basket from Hicks' but I had no idea all that was going on. Hal could never take Jacques's place. Those boys are unreliable. I didn't tell you about the quartet and Hal playing for me because I didn't know it till this very minute. I'll bet Figente decided that on the spot, he certainly is an old devil."
While it was good news about the quartet Lucy was irritated that it had come about through Vermillion. It was as though he classed her with Clem, someone to help disinterestedly. At Figente's party anyone could see he didn't think much of Clem's ideas and then he brought the critic to the exhibition. She fought him silently, resenting being beholden to someone who didn't care.
"It was really Vermillion's idea about the quartet and the Laurencin ballet. I don't understand him at all." Her tone was resentful. "I know he isn't interested in ballet, he told me so. He seems interested only in himself but I wonder whether it's because he isn't interested in anything that he wastes his time doing things for people. Maybe that's why he doesn't have time to paint. Naturally, I'm glad he spoke to Figente about the music because that's one less thing to worry about. I'm so mixed up these days I'm sorry I ever thought of giving a recital."
At Lucy's revelation of Vermillion's contributions, Vida's anxiety, which she had hoped this visit would alleviate, took on the added weight of jealousy. "Let me tell you something you don't know about him. He paints, and I've seen one at Figente's," she boasted.
"You have? What's it like?"
"It's a painting of two pears, but I can't describe it because it isn't like any other painting I've seen. As if the pears were about to burst with juice. Figente says he has something of the sense of composition, color, and flow of the Chinese Sung painters—you know, like the one Figente has in the Galleria—and the glow and solidity of Vermeer, but in an individual technique. Of course, I'm only repeating Figente about the pears. I know Vedder was impressed."
"It just goes to show you never know about that man. He is so secretive. That's what I don't like about him," Lucy commented sulkily.
