Page:Angna Enters - Among the Daughters.djvu/242

 "No, madame," he was answering Mrs. Cornwallis.

"Don't call her Madam!" Lucy said, laughing. Careful, Lucy, she admonished herself, taken aback by Mrs. Cornwallis' deadly glare. Only Figente laughed at the old joke. The Marqués smiled uncomprehendingly.

"Do you think," Mrs. Cornwallis said evenly to Figente, "that Mrs. Perry might like Prince von Bummel as a house guest before Janice has him to Newport next summer? He would like to come over now. All he can manage is the fare—he was so hurt by the inflation, and our American loan only helps the industrialists."

"My dear Horta, I have infrequent communication with my sister. Moreover, I'm bored with Europeans who come here for a handout. In fact I've lost interest in Europe. I squeezed Europe dry of what I wanted, and will never go back." He squeezed his fat fist in demonstration, noticing belatedly the Marqués flush.

Lucy felt sick and shivery cold. The name—Horta—was what she had suspected without knowing. The woman was the scary voice on the telephone that terrifying night in the Crofter Hotel in Denver. As then, she shook now, for no reason. Or was it in remembrance of that awful night when Mother and she had no idea where to turn for help the next morning? Maybe it was having champagne on an empty stomach that made unimportant things stand out. Horta's too-even false teeth clacked and, like her voice, were scary as a horror sideshow in Coney Island. When she was six there was that Chinaman in Sacramento who, when Mother could only afford one bowl of soup, had given them free chop suey. He had given her a game, too. A dark toothless grinning face in a small glass box. The trick was to roll little sago balls into the gap. The last one was the hardest to get in. Horta had one gap in her teeth. And then this Horta was here with Lyle and there had been the two girls in the Crofter Hotel and the two girls in the apartment he had taken her to. But that didn't mean anything, except she felt sorry for them. And here was Opal coming past the table. It was like a mixed-up dream. Who would have thought Opal would have given up Freddie and tum up in New York?

"Hello, Opal, I didn't recognize you, you're so much thinner," Lucy said.

"How do you do," Mrs. Nicholas Allwood 3rd said distantly.

"How's your brother Frank?"

"He's at Princeton."

"Well, good for him!" 230