with the possibilities of the idea." He wiped his eyes, shaking with laughter.
"What happened?" Vida asked, slowly gathering the threads of implication.
His expression became one of puzzled ingenuousness. "It was so disappointing. I had to give up the idea for the party because Horta sailed for Europe shortly thereafter."
She looked into his lashless unblinking frog eyes, and could not help laughing. "What a pity!" she said, the full impact of his revenge for Lucy precipitating in her a wave of affection for this contrary being.
"Dinner is served," said Denis.
"I must go and find Lucy," Vida said, rising.
Figente seemed genuinely disappointed. "You can't leave when Denis has made your favorite dishes," he wailed. "Try again and see if she's come in."
"She hasn't," Vida reported frowning. He must be very lonesome tonight that he was going out of his way to be so nice to her.
"How's Hal?" she asked simulating cheerfulness.
"Hal's in Paris. Don't you think this white burgundy is quite good?"
"It's nectar to me. In Congress the only wine you can get is the red ink an Italian grocer makes, and that's worse than vinegar. When did he leave?"
"About the time I left for Newport," Figente said. "I knew he would leave in time, he wanted so much to be in the vortex of modern music—but I hoped I would be well enough to go with him as far as Rome. I want to see the Vatican again. Did I ever tell you I have a Cardinal cousin?" He spoke wistfully.
In the candlelight his face made her think of a woman Lucy had told about, an old woman who had had the new paraffin treatment in face lifting and when her face got hot the wax had melted.
"But he'll come back, and think how much he will have learned," she tried to comfort him.
"Of course," he said airily, closing her off from view of his resignation to loneliness. "But meanwhile there is that apartment of Hal's off Madison that I took for him to have a place to practice by himself. Unless you prefer some other place, I wish you would take it. There are two rooms, kitchen and bath, and there are good furnishings from here. Take it as a favor to me—I cannot bear to pay
