"No. Not now."
Above the head of the little bronze boy, level glance met level glance,
as in the moonlight the men surveyed each other.
Then Mary spoke.
"Mr. Poole, I am so sorry not to hear the rest of the--story."
"You shall hear it another time."
She hesitated, looking up at him. It was as if she wanted to speak but
could not, with Porter there to listen.
So she smiled, with eyes and lips. Just a flash, but it warmed his
heart.
Yet as she went away with Porter, and passed once more through the
broad band of the street lamp's light which made of her scarlet cloak a
flaming flower, he looked after her wistfully, and wondered if when she
had heard what he had to tell she would ever smile at him like that
again.
Delilah, fresh from a triumphal summer, was in the midst of a laughing
group on the porch.
As Mary came up, she was saying: "And we have taken a dear old home in
Georgetown. No more glare or glitter. Everything is to be subdued to
the dullness of a Japanese print--pale gray and dull blue and a splash
of black. This gown gives the keynote."
She was in gray taffeta, with a girdle of soft old blue, and a string
of black rose-beads. No color was on her cheeks--there was just the
blackness of her hair and the whiteness of her fine skin.
"It's great," Barry said, Delilah nodded. "Yes. It has taken me several years to find out some
things." She looked at Grace and smiled. "It didn't take you years,
did it?"
Grace smiled back. The two women were as far apart as the poles.
Grace represented the old Knickerbocker stock, Lilah, a later grafting.
Grace studied clothes because it pleased her to make fashions a fine
art. Delilah studied to impress. But each one saw in the other some
similarity of taste and of mood, and the smile that they exchanged was
that of comprehension.
Aunt Frances did not approve of Delilah. She said so to Grace going
home.
"My dear, they live on the West Side--in a big house on the Drive. My
calling list stops east of the Park."
Grace shrugged. "Mother," she said, "I learned one thing in
Paris--that the only people worth knowing are the interesting people,
and whether they live on the Drive or in Dakota, I don't care. And
we've an awful lot of fossils in our set."
Mrs. Clendenning shifted the argument. "I don't see why General Dick
allows Leila to be so much with Miss Jeliffe."