impact of this remark, a reflection of the exact truth, was not necessary to cause Clyde to gaze attentively, and even eagerly. For apart from her local position and means and taste in dress and manners, Sondra was of the exact order and spirit that most intrigued him — a somewhat refined (and because of means and position showered upon her) less savage, although scarcely less self-centered, Hortense Briggs. She was, in her small, intense way, a seeking Aphrodite, eager to prove to any who were sufficiently attractive the destroying power of her charm, while at the same time retaining her own personality and individuality free of any entangling alliance or compromise. However, for varying reasons which she could not quite explain to herself, Clyde appealed to her. He might not be anything socially or financially, but he was interesting to her.
Hence she was now keen, first to see if he were present, next to be sure that he gained no hint that she had seen him first, and lastly to act as grandly as possible for his benefit — a Hortensian procedure and type of thought that was exactly the thing best calculated to impress him. He gazed and there she was — tripping here and there in a filmy chiffon dance frock, shaded from palest yellow to deepest orange, which most enhanced her dark eyes and hair. And having exchanged a dozen or more “Oh, Hellos,” and references with one and another to this, that and the other local event, she at last condescended to evince awareness of his proximity.
“Oh, here you are. You decided to come after all. I wasn’t sure whether you would think it worth while. You’ve been introduced to everybody, of course?” She looked around as much as to say, that if he had not been she would proceed to serve him in this way. The others, not so very much impressed by Clyde, were still not a little interested by the fact that she seemed so interested in him.
“Yes, I met nearly everybody, I think.”
“Except Freddie Sells. He came in with me just now. Here you are, Freddie,” she called to a tall and slender youth, smooth of cheek and obviously becurled as to hair, who now came over and in his closely-fitting dress coat looked down on Clyde about as a spring rooster might look down on a sparrow.
“This is Clyde Griffiths, I was telling you about, Fred,” she began briskly. “Doesn’t he look a lot like Gilbert?”
“Why, you do at that,” exclaimed this amiable person, who seemed to be slightly troubled with weak eyes since he bent close. “I hear you’re a cousin of Gil’s. I know him well. We went through Princeton together. I used to be over here before I joined the General Electric over at Schenectady. But I’m around a good bit yet. You’re connected with the factory, I suppose.”
“Yes, I am,” said Clyde, who, before a youth of obviously so much more training and schooling than he possessed, felt not a little reduced. He began to fear that this individual would try to talk to him about things which he could not understand, things concerning which, having had no consecutive training of any kind, he had never been technically informed.
“In charge of some department, I suppose?”
“Yes, I am,” said Clyde, cautiously and nervously.
“You know,” went on Mr. Sells, briskly and interestingly, being of a commercial as well as technical turn, “I’ve always wondered just what, outside of money, there is to the collar business. Gil and I used to argue about that when we were down at college. He used to try to tell me that there was some social importance to making and distributing collars, giving polish and manner to people who wouldn’t otherwise have them, if it weren’t for cheap collars. I think he musta read that in a book somewhere. I always laughed at him.”
Clyde was about to attempt an answer, although already beyond his depth in regard to this. “Social importance.” Just what did he mean by that — some deep, scientific information that he had acquired at college. He was saved a non-committal or totally uninformed answer by Sondra who, without thought or knowledge of the difficulty which was then and there before him, exclaimed: “Oh, no arguments, Freddie. That’s not interesting. Besides I want him to meet my brother and Bertine. You remember Miss Cranston. She was with me at your uncle’s last spring.”
Clyde turned, while Fred made the best of the rebuff by merely looking at Sondra, whom he admired so very much.
“Yes, of course,” Clyde began, for he had been studying these two along with others. To him, apart from Sondra, Bertine seemed exceedingly attractive, though quite beyond his understanding also. Being involved, insincere and sly, she merely evoked in him a troubled sense of ineffectiveness, and hence uncertainty, in so far as her particular world was concerned — no more.
“Oh, how do you do? It’s nice to see you again,” she drawled, the while her greenish-gray eyes went over him in a smiling and yet indifferent and quizzical way. She thought him attractive, but not nearly as shrewd and hard as she would have preferred him to be. “You’ve been terribly busy with your work, I suppose. But now that you’ve come out once, I suppose we’ll see more of you here and there.”
“Well, I hope so,” he replied, showing his even teeth.
Her eyes seemed to be saying that she did not believe what she was saying and that he did not either, but that it was necessary, possibly amusing, to say something of the sort.
And a related, though somewhat modified, version of this same type of treatment was accorded him by Stuart, Sondra’s brother.
“Oh, how do you do. Glad to know you. My sister has just been telling me about you. Going to stay in Lycurgus long? Hope you do. We’ll run into one another once in a while then, I suppose.”
Clyde was by no means so sure, but he admired the easy, shallow way in which Stuart laughed and showed his even white teeth — a quick, genial, indifferent laugh. Also the way in which he turned and laid hold of Wynette Phant’s white arm as she passed. “Wait a minute, Wyn. I want to ask you something.” He was gone — into another room — bending close to her and talking fast. And Clyde had noticed that his clothes were perfectly cut.
What a gay world, he thought. What a brisk world. And just then Jill Trumbull began calling, “Come on, people. It’s not my fault. The cook’s mad about something and you’re all late anyhow. We’ll get it over with and then dance, eh?”
“You can sit between me and Miss Trumbull when she gets the rest of us seated,” assured Sondra. “Won’t that be nice? And now you may take me in.”
She slipped a white arm under Clyde’s and he felt as though he were slowly but surely being transported to paradise.
Chapter 26
The dinner itself was chatter about a jumble of places, personalities, plans, most of which had nothing to do with anything that Clyde had personally contacted here. However, by reason of his own charm, he soon managed to overcome the sense of strangeness and hence indifference in some quarters, more particularly the young women of the group who were interested by the fact that Sondra Finchley liked him. And Jill Trumbull, sitting beside him, wanted to know where he came from, what his own home life and connections were like, why he had decided to come to Lycurgus, questions which, interjected as they were between silly banter concerning different girls and their beaus, gave Clyde pause. He did not feel that he could admit the truth in connection with his family at all. So he announced that his father conducted a hotel in Denver — not so very large, but still a hotel. Also that he had come to Lycurgus because his uncle had suggested to him in Chicago that he come to learn the collar
