"That one?" demanded Mallett, halting her on the edge of the palms which screened the conservatory doors.
"You mean Mr. Dysart? YesIdo like him."
"Well, he's married, and you'd better not," he snapped.
"C-can't I like him?" in piteous astonishment which set the colour flying into his face.
"Why, yesof courseI didn't mean"
"What did you mean? Isn't itshouldn't he be"
"Oh, it's all right, Geraldine. Only he's a sort of a pig to keep you away fromothers"
"Otherpigs?"
He turned sharply, seized her, and forcibly turned her toward the light. She made no effort to control her laughter, excusing it between breaths:
"I didn't mean to turn what you said into ridicule; it came out before I meant it.... Do let me laugh a little, Duane. I simply cannot care about anything serious for a whileI want to be frivolous"
"Don't laugh so loud," he whispered.
She released his arm and sank down on a marble seat behind the flowering oleanders.
"Why are you so disagreeable?" she pouted. "I know I'm a perfect fool, and the champagne has gone to my silly headand you'll never catch me this way again.... Don't scowl at me. Why don't you act like other men? Don't you know how?"
"Know how?" he repeated, looking down into the adorably flushed face uplifted. "Know how to do what?"
"To flirt. I don't. Everybody has tried to teach me to-nighteverybody except you Duane.... I'm ready to go home; I'll go. Only my head is whirling soTell meare you glad to see me again? Really? And you don't mind my folly? And my tormenting you? And mymy turning your head a little?"
"You've done that," he said, forcing a laugh.
"Have I? I knew it.... You see, I am horridly truthful to-night. In vino veritas! Tell medid I, all by myself, turn that too-experienced head of yours?"
"You're doing it now," he said.
She laughed deliciously. "Now? Am I? Yes, I know I am. I've made a lot of men think hard to-night.... I didn't know I could; I never before thought of it.... Andeven you, too? You're not very serious, are you?"
"Yes, I am. I tell you, Geraldine, I'm about as much in love with you as"
"In love!"
"Yes"
"No!"
"Yes, I am"
But she would not have it put so crudely.
"You dear boy," she said, "we'll both be quite sane to-morrow.... No, I don't mind your kissing my handI'm dreadfully tired, anyway.... We'll find Kathleen, shall we? My head doesn't buzz much."
"Geraldine," he said, deliberately encircling her waist, "you are only the same small girl I used to know, after all."
"Y-yes, I'm afraid so."
"And you're not really old enough to really care for anybody, are you?"
"Care?"
"Love."
"No, I'm not. Don't talk to me that way, Duane."
He drew her suddenly into his arms and kissed her on the cheek twice, and again on the mouth, as, crimson, breathless, she strained away from him.
"Duane!" she gasped"why did you?" Then the throbbing of her body and crushed lips made her furious. "Why did you do that?" she cried fiercelybut her voice ended in a dry sob; she covered her head and face with bare arms; her hands tightened convulsively and clenched.
"Oh," she said, "how could you!when I came to youfeelingafraid of myself! I know you now. You are what they say you are."
"What do they say I am?" he stammered.
"HorridI don't knowwild!whatever that implies.... I didn't careI didn't care even to understand, because I thought you generous and nice to meand I was so confident of you that I came with you and told you I had had some champagne which made my head swim.... And youdid this! Itit was contemptible."
He bit his lip, but said nothing.
"Why did you do it?" she demanded, dropping her arms from her face and staring at him. "Is that the sort of thing you did abroad?"
"Can't you see I'm in love with you?" he said.
"Oh! Is that love? Then keep it for your models andand Bohemian grisettes! A decent man couldn't have done such a thing to me. II loathe myself for being silly and weak enough to have touched that wine, but I have more contempt for you than I have for myself. What you did was cowardly!"
Much of the colour had fled from her face; her eyes, bluish underneath the lower lids, turned wearily, helplessly in search of Kathleen.
"I knew I was unfit for liberty," she said, half to herself. "What an ending to my first pleasure!"
"For Heaven's sake, Geraldine," he broke out, "don't take an accident so tragically"
"I want Kathleen. Do you hear?"
"Very well; I'll find her.... And, whatever you say or think, I am in love with you," he added fiercely.
His voice, his words, were meaningless; she was conscious only of the heavy pulse in throat and temple, of the desire for her room and darkness. Lights, music, the scent of dying flowers, laughter, men, all had become abhorrent. Something within her lay bruised and stunned; and, as never before, the vast and terrible phantom of her loneliness rose like a nightmare to menace her.
Later Kathleen came and took her away.
CHAPTER IV
THE YEAR OF DISCRETION
Her first winter resembled, more or less, the first winter of the average débutante.
Under the roof of the metropolitan social temple there was a niche into which her forefathers had fitted. Within the confines of this she expected, and was expected, to live and move and have her being, and ultimately wing upward to her God, leaving the consecrated cubby-hole reserved for her descendants.
She did what her sister débutantes did, and some things they did not do, was asked where they were asked, decorated the same tier of boxes at the opera, appeared in the same short-skirted entertainments of the Junior League, saw what they saw, was seen where they were seen, chattered, danced, and flirted with the same youths, was smitten by the popular "dancing" man, convalesced in average time, smoked her first cigarette, fell a victim to the handsome and horrid married destroyer, recovered with a shock when, as usual, he overdid it, played at being engaged, was kissed once or twice, adored Sembrich, listened ignorantly but with intuitive shudders to her first scandals, sent flowers to Ethel Barrymore, kept Lent with the pure fervour of a conscience troubled and untainted, drove four in the coaching parade, and lunched afterward at the Commonwealth Club, where her name was subsequently put up for election.
Spectacular charities lured her from the Plaza to Sherry's, from Sherry's to the St. Regis; church work beguiled her; women's suffrage, led daintily in a series of circles by Fashion and Wealth, enlisted her passive patronage. She even tried the slums, but the perfume was too much for her.
All the small talk and epigrams of the various petty impinging circles under the social dome passed into and out of her small earsgossip, epigrams, aphorisms, rumours, apropos surmises, asides, and off-stage observations, subtle with double entendre, harmless and otherwise.
She met people of fashion, of wealth, and both; and now and then encountered one or two of those men and women of real distinction whose names and peregrinations are seldom chronicled in the papers.
She heard the great artists of the two operas sing in private; was regaled with information concerning the remarkable decency or indecency of their private careers. She saw fashionable plays which instructed the public about squalor, murder, and men's mistresses, which dissected very skilfully and artistically the ethics of moral degradation. And being as healthy and curious as the average girl, she found in the theatres material with which to inform herself about certain occult mysteries concerning which, heretofore, she had been left mercifully in doubt.