Twilight Sleep
be eaten as soon as plucked. And Gladys' corn-yellow hair was almost as springy and full of coloured shadows as the other's red. But the voice, the dress, the jewels, the blatant jewels! A Cartier show-case spilt over a strawberry mousse. . . And the quick possessive look, so clumsily done—brazen, yet half-abashed! When a woman's first business. was to make up her mind which it was to be. . . Chances were the man didn't care, as long as her ogling didn't make him ridiculous. . . Why couldn't some women always be in golf clothes—if any? Gala get-up wasn't in everybody's line. . . There was Lita speaking to Gladys now—with auburn eyebrows lifted just a thread. The contrast—! And Gladys purpler and more self-conscious—God, why did she have her clothes so tight? And that drawing-room draw!! Why couldn't she just sing out: "Hullo!" as she did in the open?
The Marchesa—how many times more was he to hear Pauline say: "Amalasuntha on your right, dear." Oh, to get away to a world where nobody gave dinners, and there were no Marchesas on one's right! He knew by heart the very look of the little cheese soufflés, light as cherubs' feathers, that were being handed around before the soup on silver-gilt dishes with coats-of-arms. Everything at Cedarledge was silver-gilt. Pauline, as usual, had managed to transplant the party to New York, when all he wanted was to be quiet, smoke his pipe, and ride or tramp with Nona and Lita. Why couldn't she
