Audrey's audacity always amused him. In the doorway she turned and
nonchalantly surveyed the room.
"For heaven's sake, hurry!" she apostrophized the table. "We are going
to knit--I feel it. And don't give Chris anything more to drink, Clay.
He's had enough."
She went on, a slim green figure, moving slowly and reluctantly toward
the drawing-room, her head held high, a little smile still on her lips.
But, alone for a moment, away from curious eyes, her expression changed,
her smile faded, her lovely, irregular face took on a curious intensity.
What a devilish evening! Chris drinking too much, talking wildly, and
always with furtive eyes on her. Chris! Oh, well, that was life, she
supposed.
She stopped before a long mirror and gave a bit of careless attention to
her hair. With more care she tinted her lips again with a cosmetic stick
from the tiny, diamond-studded bag she carried. Then she turned and
surveyed the hall and the library beyond. A new portrait of Natalie was
there, hanging on the wall under a shaded light, and she wandered in,
still with her cigaret, and surveyed it. Natalie had everything. The
portrait showed it. It was beautiful, smug, complacent.
Mrs. Valentine's eyes narrowed slightly. She stood there, thinking about
Natalie. She had not everything, after all. There was something she
lacked. Charm, perhaps. She was a cold woman. But, then, Clay was cold,
too. He was even a bit hard. Men said that; hard and ambitious, although
he was popular. Men liked strong men. It was only the weak they deplored
and loved. Poor Chris!
She lounged into the drawing-room, smiling her slow, cool smile. In
the big, uncarpeted alcove, where stood Natalie's great painted piano,
Marion Hayden was playing softly, carefully posed for the entrance of
the men. Natalie was sitting with her hands folded, in the exact center
of a peacock-blue divan. The others were knitting.
"Very pretty effect, Toots!" Audrey called. And Miss Hayden gave her the
unashamed smile of one woman of the world to another.
Audrey had a malicious impulse. She sat down beside Natalie, and against
the blue divan her green gown shrieked a discord. She was vastly
amused when Natalie found an excuse and moved away, to dispose herself
carefully in a tall, old-gold chair, which framed her like a picture.
"We were talking of men, my dear," said Mrs. Haverford, placidly
knitting.
"Of course," said Audrey, flippantly.
"Of what it is that they want more than anything else in the world."
"Children-sons," put in Mrs. Mackenzie. She was a robust, big woman with
kindly eyes, and she was childless.