Page:Dorothy Canfield - Rough-hewn.djvu/437

 that Ambrogi was not there. Horrid—an old man like that who could not keep his hands off women thirty years younger than he! But as for that, the old Visconti himself could not keep his off women fifty years younger than he! As she sped swiftly along the upper hall, a crocus-colored Atalanta in her pale-yellow dress, she was saying to herself, "Oh, well, that's the way men are, none of them can keep their hands off women"—all except self-conscious posing marionettes like that absurd Livingstone, or men like her father, who took it out in caring about what they ate and drank. How harmless that was—in comparison! How nice it was in comparison! Had she ever been impatient with Father because he cared so much about what he ate and drank? She felt a little wave of affection for him. She really must try to get back to Paris for a few days, and make sure that Biron was keeping up to the mark.

There, the last person was served. And everybody had somebody to talk to. Oh, how tired she was, how sick of all this! This was a soirée musicale! These were the people on whom she was to count for musical success. She was supposed to be here to play Beethoven! She broke into a nervous laugh at the idea.

Of course she had known that Mr. Livingstone would be enchanted at the invitation from Donna Antonia. And of course Mr. Crittenden would be too. Anybody would. To have made such an impression on Ambrogi—it was remarkable!

But he wasn't enchanted. He said he wasn't going. What under the sun did that mean? Did he think he could get an invitation to dinner if he held off from this one to tea? Yes, probably that was it. Well, she wasn't sure, that was the way to work Ambrogi. Still you never could tell. Perhaps the boldness of it might take Ambrogi's fancy.

How funny, funny, funny, the head Ambrogi would show at the tea-table when poor Livingstone turned up alone with that self-conscious, naïvely-sophisticated manner of his, so proud of seeming a man of the world. And Ambrogi despising