The Visionists/Chapter 6
VI
Nomé improved rapidly in strength. When she was well enough to take the air she drove out in Lady Felvex's carriage. The two ladies were at times accompanied by Lord Felvex, and Nomé began to perceive, for the first time, evidences of the wide repute she had gained. Their landau was repeatedly stopped that the minister might receive the greetings of congratulatory friends; and everyone presented to Nomé had a look of piquant interest and an expression of approbation more or less flattering for the girl. She could not help noticing that the carriage was often pointed out by the strollers in the Park, and the curiosity displayed left her no doubt that she had become, in her way, a person of note. This public interest was as hard to bear as the private evidences of gratitude which her hostess showered upon her; for it brought into sharp relief the reverse of the medal—the picture of herself as an assassin pursued by the public opprobrium.
She was becoming accustomed and apathetic to her false position, however, biding the suspense, when one day she was stung to the quick by the sight of O'Brien. He was sitting on a bench by the drive, and, as the carriage swept by, their eyes met. He stared at her without apparent recognition. A wave of color surged to Nomé's cheeks, for, on the instant, she realized what the sight of her, comfortably ensconced in the cushions of Lord Felvex's carriage, would mean to such an excitable member of the Circle.
It did not matter what the crowd thought of her. It did not so much matter even what Lord Felvex himself thought of her, for these outsiders would never understand her motives, and could never credit her with the glory of a sublime ideal. But to be misjudged and suspected by one of her own comrades in the Cause was galling to her pride. And she knew that O'Brien would suspect her. His fierce class-hatred and hot, radical prejudices would resent the sight of Nomé playing the part of an aristocrat. He would suspect her of being seduced by the life she was now leading; he would doubt of her being able to end it with the necessary tragic climax. She had been used before to wealth and social honors. He would scarcely trust her, surrounded by such temptations, not to return to her old place in the world, the place to which she was born. The vision of his face followed her, accusing and malevolent, during the rest of the day.
With the freedom of the house as her privilege, she had made familiar use of the library, which was well and wisely stocked. It was little used, and there Nomé often found sanctuary from the distracting moods of her suspense. There were two rooms completely filled with books, the smaller chamber being shut off from the larger by a curtained doorway.
She went downstairs one afternoon, intending to return a volume which she had borrowed, and was just about to pass between the portières when, pushing aside the folds, she saw that the small room was occupied. Lord Felvex was there with a lady whom Nomé had never seen before, and the two were in the midst of an animated conversation.
Nomé took her in, estimated and appraised her at the first glance. She was a scintillating blonde with a high-rolling pompadour, eyes of Irish blue, deeply cleft cheeks and dazzling teeth set in a large open mouth. She was a finished product of fashionable society. All that was possible for coiffeur, masseuse and manicure, for tailor, milliner and jeweler, to do had been done. Every natural excellence had been so accentuated, and every defect so improved or concealed, that, without any pretensions to good looks, she gave an effect of definite beauty. Her costume was a miracle of violet chiffon; her hat was the extreme of picturesque millinery. She was smoking a cigarette whose perfume, mingled with the odor of violets, came to Nomé to accentuate the impression this exotic mondaine produced upon the young girl's mind. No strange and terrible orchid could have attracted her with stronger feelings of surprise and alarm. Nomé dropped the curtain hurriedly, yet stood fascinated by the scraps of talk which came to her.
"But you really are good-looking, George," the lady was saying. "Most Englishmen's faces are made of either wax or rubber, but yours is marble. You've got a lovely, firm chin, with that delicious little cleft that looks as if God had put His thumb there the last thing and said, 'There! now you're finished!' And you've got psychic hands, too—that's why I'm so afraid of you! Look at mine—I wish I could whittle off my fingers till they were pointed like yours! Oh, you're a charmer, George, you needn't pretend not to be. But oh, George. I wish I could get that 'gelebt und geliebt' look round the eyes! However did you do it? It must have taken two or three wonderful women to put that on, now!"
Lord Felvex's frank laughter rang through the little room. "It's no use, Belle," he said. "This won't work. What's the little game, anyway?"
"Shame!" she replied airily. "I don't flatter myself. Oh, you're impregnable, I know that well enough. I'm not pursuing you. But I have the fatal art of understanding you, that's all. I can feel vibrations—I'm sensitive. You have power—I have only sympathy. And I'm emancipated enough to admire you frankly. I wish I could help you. You're so different to most men. Poor Henri was so much of a type that I felt as if I were marrying a thousand men at a whack when I got him."
"Do you know, Belle," Lord Felvex said, "sometimes I suspect you of being clever?"
"Oh, spare me!" she cried mockingly. "That only means that I'm not good to look at! I'd give a brain for a good pair of eyes, any time. Just because you have both, you shouldn't take advantage!"
Nomé waited to hear no more, and, her mind whirling with this revelation of Lord Felvex's character, she made her way to her room.
A week passed, bringing no further word from Mangus. Nomé caught occasional glimpses of Irma Strieb, and these convinced her that sinister preparations were being made, without giving any clue as to the new part that she herself was to play. She longed to have the suspense over and to know just what was expected of her.
One day Lady Felvex came to her room and made the first positive request.
"I hope," she said, "you will be willing to dine with us tonight, Miss Destin, for we are expecting several persons whom I would like to have you meet. The Russian military attaché will be here, and a Colonel Grennyngs—he was a field comrade of Lord Felvex during the war. Then there is a charming Irishwoman who is most anxious to meet you. She is Madame Spiritan; we all consider her very clever and amusing."
Nomé was alertly attentive in an instant. "I shall be charmed; do tell me about the lady," she said.
"Really, I have known her a very short time, after all," said Lady Felvex. "She was sent to us with the best possible credentials by a friend of my husband in the French War Office. She is very attractive, and is a great favorite here—especially among the men. I might say, in fact, that she is essentially a man's woman."
"Her husband comes with her?" Nomé inquired.
"She is a widow," was the reply. "One can tell that as soon as she enters the room. She is rather good-looking and highly accomplished—most decidedly finished."
Something in Lady Felvex's tone made Nomé look at her curiously. The glance was caught and returned. Lady Felvex took the girl's hand.
"I hope you will not think me unfair," she said frankly, "but I must tell you that I don't like Madame Spiritan, myself. I distrust her instinctively, and yet I have no real reason for my feeling, and know nothing whatever to her discredit. It is partly on this account that I wish to be especially nice to her, and so I have asked you to help me. I don't wish to be prejudiced by my feelings in any way, and to avoid that I'm exerting myself to make her welcome in my house."
When Lady Felvex left Nomé gave herself over to speculation. She was to meet Madame Spiritan that evening, and would undoubtedly receive, at last, definite orders. There seemed to be no end to the complications of her position. A guest of Lady Felvex, wearing her hostess's own gowns, eating her bread and salt, she must hold herself ready to ally herself with, and to obey, one who was confessedly persona non grata in the household.
At seven o'clock she went down to the reception-room in some trepidation. Colonel Grennyngs had already arrived and was presented to her through a monocle. He was the typical Briton of the stage, complete even to the long drooping mustache and blond hair, a V.C. who would bridle and shy like a nervous colt if the subject of his decoration were brought up. He greeted Nomé with a comical deference, paid exaggerated attention to everything she said, and, with exquisite tactlessness, broached the subject of her adventure with the footpads.
The Russian attaché entered just in time to save her from embarrassment. He was a smiling, dark, easy-mannered man, with a brown pointed beard, half bald, with twinkling eyes. His airs and graces cast a gloom over the inarticulate colonel who, routed by this competition, turned to Lady Felvex for appreciation.
The Russian was, in his turn, eclipsed by the arrival of Madame Spiritan, who, sailing in on a wave of laughter, filled the room with her vivacious presence. It was as if some whimsical songbird had fluttered indoors. Nomé's eyes sprang to meet the newcomer in excited anticipation. Then she stared as if in the presence of a ghost.
Madame Spiritan was no other than the woman she had seen in such questionable relations with Lord Felvex in the library only a few days previously. Nomé was astounded and indignant at the apparition—she had expected so different a messenger from Mangus. She had looked forward to the meeting, eager to welcome this new envoy of the Cause, a sister pledged, like her, to the noble perils of their crusade. Instead, she had to meet and greet a fashionable chatterbox, a society doll, not above the odium of a common, surreptitious flirtation. Nomé had little time to adjust herself, however, for Madame Spiritan was as voluble as ether, and her conversation, permeating the apartment, had the effect either of stupefying competition or of exhilarating repartee. She began to babble:
"Well, I am late, as usual; I don't know what is going to become of me—isn't it terrible? . . . How are you, my dear Lady Felvex? I haven't seen you in an age—when in the world was it?—and how d'y do, Colonel Grennyngs! I declare it is good to see you—and Count Pribdoff—how do you do?—I must have another game of bezique with you—now, don't you forget!—and oh, I saw you flirting desperately with Hetty Clancy at the Dorés' cotillion—don't you dare to deny it!—I never thought of you as a conservatory man, but I'll have my revenge—you'll see! All's fair in love and Welsh rabbits. Lord Felvex, I am charmed—you don't look a day over ninety tonight! Think of finding two men in one room with crosses! Two V.C.'s ought to amount to royalty. It does seem like a waste of bravery and courage and gallantry under fire and conduct becoming an officer and a gentleman, and all that sort of thing, doesn't it? It's a pity we can't coax a lion into the room just to see what you two highly decorated men would do. I'll wager you'd pull up your trousers and jump on the table like ordinary women!"
Colonel Grennyngs burst into a roar of laughter and drawled: "By Jove, Madame Spiritan, it would jolly well take a regiment of elephants before you'd funk, I give you my word!"
"Now do present me to Miss Destin," Madame Spiritan went on airily. "I'm simply expiring to meet her. Oh, I'm so pleased! I've heard about you and thought about you, Miss Destin, until I was actually black in the face! Do tell me, what does it feel like to be a celebrity and have your picture in the papers and resolutions drawn up and streets named after you, and all sorts of nice things? I haven't been an infant prodigy since I had the mumps—but seriously, I do think you are awfully clever and brave and noble and everything, and I do admire your pluck so much! Really, I do, and I want to know you and tell you how foolish it was to save such an old reprobate as Lord Felvex, and find out where in America you have to go to get a complexion like that! I couldn't manufacture one as good if I had twenty-seven beauty doctors working on me for six weeks—and if you'll only exchange your hair for mine, I'll give you a dozen pairs of gloves to boot, and every one of them will make two for you. I'm simply dying to be a brunette; blondes never do anything but get fat and marry or go on the stage—and yellow hair spells wallflower in every ballroom in Europe. You mustn't mind me if I run on like this, my dear; I'm only getting my breath. I'm trying to prevent Count Pribdoff's monopolizing you. He always has the prettiest woman in the room in chains before the evening's out, and wherever he goes he leaves a streak of fire. . . . Why, Lady Felvex! are you really waiting for me? Do let's go in, then; I'm half starved—nd when I'm hungry I always look like a fright. Give me your arm, count. Th going in to dinner always reminds me of a wedding procession with the butler standing at the serving-table like a fat bishop, and the waiter giving away the potatoes, and the terrified guests mumbling 'with this fork I thee eat'!"
So, humming a snatch of "Lohengrin," she gallivanted gaily into the dining-room.
Nomé's mind was whirling with the effects of this gambado. Could it be possible that such a scatterbrain had anything to do with the Cause? She was shocked at the appearance of levity in such a connection, and could not imagine herself taking orders from such a madcap, addle-pated creature.
Yet the note from Mangus gave her no other choice than to await Madame Spiritan's instructions. Had Nomé possessed a larger sense of humor the occasion, tragic as were its possibilities, might have afforded her considerable secret mirth. As it was, she felt like a serpent depending for aid upon a butterfly. As she sat upon her host's right hand, she watched Madame Spiritan's frivolous machinations with Count Pribdoff, who appeared to be well within her sphere of influence. Lady Felvex engaged the attention of Colonel Grennyngs, leaving her husband to converse with Nomé. The talk ran on for awhile in these three channels.
The butterfly soon began to range further afield, and caught the attention of the two other men. She put one elbow on the table and pointed a spoon at Colonel Grennyngs.
"Tell me, colonel," she said, "has the Victoria Cross ever been given to a woman?"
He turned to Nomé, and looking at her pointedly, said: "I don't see Miss Destin wearing any."
Nomé blushed, and Lord Felvex generously went to her assistance.
"There wouldn't be bronze enough in the world to make crosses of if we began to decorate the women who deserve them; and most women would have so many clasps that they couldn't carry them."
"Every factory girl in the land would be eligible," Nomé added.
"My dear Miss Destin," Madame Spiritan exclaimed, "I hardly think it will do for factory girls to be discussed, until the men are left alone with their coffee."
Nomé's cheeks were blazing again, and this time Lady Felvex interposed.
"The woman who can prevent men from finishing their coffee within three-quarters of an hour deserves a cross more than anyone, I think. I have no doubt that either Colonel Grennyngs or my husband would give theirs up to you, Madame Spiritan."
"Indeed, I shall not tempt them, thank you. They can have as long as they wish to smoke. I intend to have a tête-à-tête with Miss Destin after dinner and talk about New York. She must know loads of my friends there."
For the first time she shot a direct glance at Nomé, one with a semblance of hidden meaning behind it. Then she gushed on again:
"I was a factory girl once; that's why I'm so sensitive about them. I'd never dare to acknowledge it if I weren't Irish. Being an Irishwoman is almost as good as being an American girl—and that's the next best thing to coming from Mars direct."
The rest of the dinner conversation passed almost unheeded by Nomé. Her mind was whirling, fearful of what was to come afterward. Something, she knew, was to be revealed as soon as she and Madame Spiritan could be alone. It was so different from what she had expected that it took all her energy to say to herself; "I am not really a guest here in this house, but a spy, an assassin ready at a moment's notice from this woman to shoot down my host in cold blood." Try as she might she could not adjust herself to this role; her ally's frivolous talk disconcerted her; she answered mechanically the questions that were put to her. Had she not possessed a natural fluency she would have betrayed her state of mind.
The lights of the candles, the reflections on silver and cut-glass danced before her eyes; she was as if in a dream, and in the dream she heard voluble phrases and well-turned sentences coming from her own lips, while she resurrected old ready-made opinions and criticisms of Bernard Shaw, Nietzsche and Grieg, the season's drama, the political situation in America, equal suffrage for women, British colonization, the rise of the Russian national spirit—on all of which topics she had thought well.
On her right Colonel Grennyngs, under the spell of her unconscious charm, plied her with persistent compliments; while, on the other side, she was distracted by the sight of Lord Felvex's handsome face. His deference and sympathy tortured her with memories of what he had been to her. From time to time sallies of laughter from the count, fascinated by the more flamboyant attractions of Madame Spiritan, greeted that lady's persiflage. Lady Felvex's quiet, gentle bearing was the only relief to Nomé's distracted mood. Here, she felt instinctively, she could find a friend, and would always find one, whatever happened. Lady Felvex's sure, intuitive sense of justice was bound to the girl's soul, for, whatever the issue, she was sure that here was one who would never judge her quickly or harshly.
The ladies at last withdrew, and passed into the drawing-room. Lady Felvex, hospitably mindful of Madame Spiritan's desire to talk with Nomé, left the two alone and, making a simple pretext, went upstairs. Madame Spiritan continued her drolleries until the door was closed. Then her manner suddenly changed.
She took Nomé's arm and drew her to a seat upon the divan. From beneath the berthe of sequins that ornamented the breast of her own gown she hurriedly drew a velvet bag.
"Here," she said, "you must take this, first of all. Quick, now! It is a revolver. Be careful, it's loaded. I'll show you where to hide it." And turning up the fichu of lace about Nomé's neck she fastened the bag in place with pins, then draped the cascades over the spot and rearranged the corsage bouquet of roses so that everything was hidden.
"As soon as you are in your room," she said, "put it in some safe place, where you can get it at an instant's notice. There!" Her eye had flown from Nomé's breast to the door, back and forth, as she worked; but, when the weapon was well hidden, she fell back against the cushions. Nomé's troubled eyes followed her. Her lips were part and her heart beat fast with the imminence of the peril betokened by these preparations.
"Must I do it tonight?" she whispered.
"I can't tell yet," was the answer. "I think not. Yet there is no telling how soon we may receive word from Berne. I may receive a telegram at any moment. You must hold yourself prepared to act at an instant's notice from Mangus or from me. It may be postponed for a month, or it may come in ten minutes. Listen; this will be your signal— 'It is only one of many.' When you get that sentence, either in writing from Mangus or from my lips"—she had dropped her voice to a whisper—"you are to shoot Lord Felvex, and you are to shoot to kill. Do you understand?"
Nomé's head fell on her hand. "I understand," she murmured.
Scarcely had she spoken when the door opened and a maid entered bearing coffee, liqueurs and cigarettes. Nomé saw at a glance that it was Irma Strieb, and looked to Madame Spiritan for her cue. To her surprise the lady's air instantly changed, and her torrent of nonsense broke loose again.
"Now, really, my dear Miss Destin, you ought to read some of the New Thought. You've no idea what a comfort it is to know that you don't have to do things and break your back and spoil your fingers trying to earn money and get on and be popular, and wheedle old men and flatter old women, but only just lie down on the sofa with a box of chocolates and take off your slippers and relax and devitalize and set your psychic forces in motion, and everything that's good and beautiful and splendid and lovely will come galloping toward you on horseback. You ought to place yourself in a mood to induce receptivity and trust in the All-Good, and just let the vibrations bring about the phenomena. It's perfectly lovely, and saves all your worry and brain fag and nerve force and money and everything. I tell you, people don't half realize what a wonderful help can be gained through not worrying about things and just eating your dinner peaceably and letting the universal what-you-may-call-it radiate through you. Why, when I think of all the martyrs that have burned at the stake, and had their teeth pulled out and their toes cut off—ugh! isn't it horrid?—just because they didn't know enough to enter into the harmony and oneness of things and rely upon the objectivity of thought and spiritual influence, it does seem a shame, doesn't it? But I'm sure we are growing to a higher and a nobler conception of existence and life forces and truth and things. Lady Felvex says that the New Thought is nothing but a cheap, sloppy optimism, and why don't we go to Emerson or Plato and get it in solid junks without capitals and italics and milk and water. But I must say these little magazines and blue-covered books with funny title-pages do chew it up for you so fine and thin that a mere child ought to be able to put transcendental forces in motion and bring about introactive relations with the All-in-All, and it has done me loads of good. I'm happy and contented and at peace with the great principles of life, and I don't worry about the Submerged Tenth, or tuberculosis, or anything like that, and I think that's a great gain, don't you?"
As she warbled on, she helped herself daintily to the coffee, poured a glass of bénédictine and took a cigarette. Irma Strieb was stolidly oblivious of all save her duties, and as soon as the two ladies had been served, left the room without a word or look of recognition.
"Don't you know who she is?" Nomé whispered in perplexity.
"I know her, but she doesn't know me, by any means. You and Mangus are the only persons in England who know my secret, and you would never have been told if it hadn't been for the extraordinary complications of the situation."
She dropped her voice to a lower pitch: "My dear, Mangus has asked me to do what I can to induce you to transfer your services to the International Committee. We need information that can be obtained only by women who are willing to live as I do. There's no use mincing matters—I'm a spy. I report directly to Berne, but I act in co-operation with Mangus at the head of the English section. You could help us enormously with your charm and your education and the immense advantage you have acquired in having saved Lord Felvex. We need women like you, and if you are willing to join that branch of the work there is much for you to do, though there is little enough glory in it. This assassination, as the English section planned it, is a mere detail, and we can easily find someone else to carry it out. The whole situation has developed so startlingly in the last month that we are sitting tight, awaiting advices from Switzerland. You are given the choice, however, of joining the secret service with me, or of carrying out your original errand. But you must choose immediately between the two. Your action, whatever it is, must be voluntary."
Nomé answered firmly: "Madame Spiritan, it is too late now to recede or to change. I have no choice but to go on as I began. I would always be suspected by the Circle of treachery if I kept the place I seem to hold now. Besides all this, there are other reasons that impel me to keep to my original intention. The whole success or failure of my life depends upon it. I've had enough of theories and abstractions and equivocal positions; I must act for once, and put my convictions to the test. I don't care to live, but I do want to end my life with some one big thing having been accomplished. The suspense and the hypocrisy of the situation are unbearable, and I can scarcely wait to end it all."
"You are a brave girl," said Madame Spiritan; "you are magnificent! I confess I couldn't do it. I can pull the wool over the eyes of these fools, hoodwink men, deceive women, eavesdrop and play the spy—that is my métier. But I could no more pull the trigger of that revolver than I could come into this drawing-room in a last year's frock. It is settled, then. I'm sorry for you, my dear girl, but you to your work and I to mine; we are both laboring for the Cause."
Nomé looked up at her in frank admiration. "Oh, I had no idea you were like this!" she whispered. "How I misjudged you! How little I know of life, of human nature—almost as little, Madame Spiritan, as I know of myself. How much I long to know!—and how little, little time I have in which to learn!"
Madame Spiritan took both Nomé's hands in hers, and the tears were in her eyes. "You are very young, dear," she answered. "Indeed, you have much to learn. I am a woman—do you think I enjoy my hypocrisy? Do you think I can go about, two-faced, double-tongued, laughed at or despised as a scatterbrain, a doll, a flirt, without feeling my degradation? And I know, too, how much worse than that I am! The lowest sneak-thief is better, if I allow myself to think by the world's standards. But, Nomé, we have given up the world's standards for something higher. We have pledged to this Cause not only our lives but our honor. I gave mine willingly, cheerfully, and so must you give yours."
"0h, how you have helped me!" Nomé exclaimed in her relief at finding, at last, a worthy comrade to support her in this agony of her spirit. She smiled through her tears. "I think I can bear it now," she said simply. "And yet—there is one thing, Madame Spiritan, that you do not know—that you could never guess—you have no idea of my weakness—I could not confess it to a man—but—Lord Felvex"
Madame Spiritan bent over and kissed her upon the cheek. "I know," she said. "It was partly for that that I offered you the chance to act with me."
"No! no!" Nomé cried bitterly. "Never that! I must die. I long for death!"
"We shall make all possible preparation for your escape the moment we receive advices," Madame Spiritan continued hurriedly. "But I must warn you that there is little hope of our being able to get you off; less chance than there was before. In plain terms, it is murder—and really, my dear Miss Destin, I think your tall buildings in New York are the most atrocious things! That Flatiron building is, for all the world, like a huge slice of cheese, filled with maggots; and as for your Elevated trains, one might as well climb into the inside of an anaconda and be done with it!"
Her quick ear had detected the rustling of Lady Felvex's silk skirts outside the door, and before it swung open Madame Spiritan's bubbling pleasantries were filling the room. Nomé, despite her agitation, could not fail to admire the marvelous agility of her fellow-conspirator's wits. She herself found some trouble in managing the change of mood, and, to conceal her nervousness, rose to greet her hostess.
"Madame Spiritan has been most amusing," she said, "but we have missed you. Lady Felvex."
Almost immediately the drawing-room doors were thrown open and the men entered. The conversation became general, and Nomé, stimulated by the excitement, began to talk. She soon held the circle of guests in delight with her conversation. Colonel Grennyngs's eyes did not leave her. The count forgot, for the while, the giddier attractions of Madame Spiritan. The minister drew the girl out with skilful questions. Lady Felvex watched her curiously, much interested in the effect she was producing upon the men.
The color was sustained in Nomé's cheeks. Her eyes were dark with emotion, her gestures were animated by the insistence of her soul to prepare a defense for herself against the time of accusation. She turned the talk toward the higher ethical subjects and the martyrs of all great causes, defending even those who, half crazed by brooding over great wrongs, had made their tremendous but sublime mistakes with the high-mindedness of patriots. Madame Spiritan, as Nomé approached these radical theories, mingled a running stream of whimsical comment; but the interest of the men was held, despite their objections, in admiration of the girl's eloquence, and Nomé's object was attained. Whatever should happen now, she could never be accused of a common, vulgar treachery. She had said enough to make them pause in their judgment of her when her hour had struck. It was characteristic of her vanity that she should take the pains thus to pave the way for her apologists. She could not bear to be anything less than wonderful, anything less than a heroine.
The talk finally ebbed until a game of bridge was proposed. Madame Spiritan eagerly accepted the opportunity to break up the gravity of the evening. A party was arranged, consisting of herself and the three men. Lady Felvex protesting her desire to look on with Nomé, who could not play.
It was now Madame Spiritan's turn to entertain the company, and, in spite of the etiquette of the game, she kept up a continual fire of raillery. Lady Felvex took her place upon the divan, holding Nomé's hand.
The play had gone on for half an hour when the door opened and Irma Strieb entered, bearing an envelope upon a tray.
"A telegram for Madame Spiritan," she announced, and handed it to that lady.
Nomé freed herself from Lady Pelvex's hand. Her own flew to her breast. There it rested, trembling, upon the weapon hidden under the fichu while her eyes stared fixedly at the group seated about the table, awaiting the signal that might come.
"Why in the world do you suppose they pursue me with telegrams so?" Madame Spiritan complained pettishly, tearing open the envelope. "Now I shall forget the run of the game, and you'll have to suffer for it, Count Pribdoff. There's only one possible excuse for a telegram, and that's the death of a rich uncle in New Zealand. Everything else ought to wait until after breakfast and be sterilized before it's brought to the table. Now, what do you think of that? Fancy! this is from my milliner. I get them all the time, and they always say the same thing: 'No answer received from bill sent last week.' Colonel, it's your lead, I believe. Is it diamonds or spades?" She tore the paper into scraps and tucked it carefully into the front of her gown, then took up her cards.
Nomé's hand fell to her side, and she leaned back against the cushions with an unconscious sigh.