Page:O Genteel Lady! (1926).pdf/109

 about it. To take his priceless Persian garments home with her even for the night seemed an imposition, but she could not find a way to retire to her dressing-room. The coffee was served, a thick, delicious syrup in tiny cups of gold and turquoise. Jones grew warm. He threw back his headgear that during the lecture had drooped so becomingly about his sturdy face and with a careless gesture pushed back the layers of cloth upon his throat and chest.

'Are you warmer, Lanice?' How had he learned her name. How dared he use it?

'The fire,' she said primly, 'is very vigorous.'

'Yes.'

Conversation sickened, but there was a false undertone to its weakness that suggested a strategic retreat before attack. The girl had disappointed Jones. In the Persian dress she seemed almost wholly the editoress disguised as an ancient princess, while in hoops and plaid taffeta the disguise had seemed the other way around. The ruddy fire distorted shadows and burned orange in the folds of his white wool wrappings. It glittered on his chest which lay for some inches bare to the heat. The spectacle of so much firm clean skin revolted her, who was trained to believe that the body is in itself evil. Such a lack of collar, cravat, and waistcoat was disgusting. As she turned, and as the fire leaped, cruel blue lights, bright rosy copper flamed in her robes. The man could have laughed as he noticed the mincing kid shoe with elastic inserts below the robes of an odalesque.