“And the men cry Girlie, hi!Bring me—”
“And the men cry Girlie, hi!Bring me—”
“And the men cry Girlie, hi!Bring me—”
“And the men cry Girlie, hi!
Bring me—”
“Silence, dah! Ah’m thinkin’....”
Cuna, full of charming roses, full of violet shadows, full of music, full of Love, Cuna ...!
Leaning from a balcony of the Grand Savannah hotel, their instincts all aroused, Miami and Edna gazed out across the Alemeda, a place all foliage, lamplight, and flowers. It was the hour when Society, in slowly-parading carriages, would congregate to take the air beneath the pale mimosas that adorned the favourite promenade. All but recumbent, as though agreeably fatigued by their recent emotions (what wild follies were not committed in shuttered-villas during the throbbing hours of noon?), the Cunans, in their elegant equipages, made for anyone, fresh from the provinces, an interesting and absorbing sight. The liquid-eyed loveliness of thewomen, and the handsomeness of the men, with their black moustaches and their treacherous smiles—these, indeed, were things to gaze on.
“Oh ki!” Miami laughed delightedly, indicating a foppish, pretty youth, holding in a restive little horse dancing away with him.
Rubbing herself repeatedly, as yet embarrassed by the novelty of her clothes, Edna could only gasp.
“...,” she jabbered, pointing at some flaunting belles in great evening hats and falling hair.
“All dat fine,” Miami murmured, staring in wonderment around.
Dominating the city soared the Opera House, uplifting a big, naked man, all gilt, who was being bitten, or mauled, so it seemed, by a pack of wild animals carved of stone, while near by were the University, and the Cathedral with its low white dome crowned by moss-green tiles.
Making towards it, encouraged by the Vesper bell, some young girls, in muslinmasks, followed by a retinue of bustling nuns, were running the gauntlet of the profligates that clustered on the curb.
“Oh, Jesus honey!” Edna cooed, scratching herself in an ecstasy of delight.
“Fo’ shame, Chile, to act so unladylike; if any gen’leman look up he t’ink you make a wicked sign,” Mrs. Mouth cautioned, stepping out upon the balcony from the sitting-room behind.
Inhaling a bottle of sal volatile, to dispelde megrims, she was looking dignified in adécolletéof smoke-blue tulle.
“Nebba dodatin S’ciety,” she added, placing a protecting arm around each of her girls.
Seduced, not less than they, by the animation of the town, the fatigue of the journey seemed amply rewarded. It was amusing to watch the crowd before the Ciné Lara, across the way, where many were flocking attracted by the hectic posters of “A Wife’s Revenge.”
“I keep t’inking I see Nini Snagg,” Mrs. Mouth observed, regarding a negress inemerald-tinted silk, seated on a public-bench beneath the glittering greenery.
“Cunan folk dat fine,” Edna twittered, turning about at her Father’s voice:
“W’en de day ob toil is done,W’en de race ob life is run,Heaven send thy weary oneRest for evermore!”
“W’en de day ob toil is done,W’en de race ob life is run,Heaven send thy weary oneRest for evermore!”
“W’en de day ob toil is done,W’en de race ob life is run,Heaven send thy weary oneRest for evermore!”
“W’en de day ob toil is done,
W’en de race ob life is run,
Heaven send thy weary one
Rest for evermore!”
“Prancing Nigger! Is it worth while to wear dose grimaces?”
“Sh’o, dis no good place to be.”
“Why, what dair wrong wid it?”
“Ah set out to look fo’ de Meetin’-House, but no sooner am Ah in de street, dan a female wid her har droopin’ loose down ober her back, an’ into her eyes, she tell me to Come along.”
“Some of dose bold women, dey ought to be shot through dair bottoms!” Mrs. Mouth indignantly said.
“But I nebba answer nothin’.”
“May our daughters respect dair virtue same as you!” Mrs. Mouth returned, focusing wistfully the vast flowery parterre of the Café McDhu’l.
Little city of cocktails, Cuna! The surpassing excellence of thy Barmen, who shall sing?
“See how dey spell ‘Biar,’ Mammee,” Miami tittered: “Dey forget dei!”
“Sh’o, Chile, an’ so dey do....”
“Honey Jesus!” Edna broadly grinned: “Imagine de ignorance ob dat.”
Now, beyond the Alemeda, in the modish faubourg of Farananka, there lived a lady of both influence and wealth—the widow of the Inventor of Sunflower Piquant. Arbitress absolute of Cunan society, and owner, moreover, of a considerable portion of the town, thevetoof Madame Ruiz, had caused the suicide indeed of more than one social climber. Unhappy, nostalgic, disdainful, selfish, ever about to abandon Cuna-Cuna to return to it no more, yet never budging, adoring her fairy villa far too well, Madame Ruiz while craving for the International-world, consoled herself by watching from afar European Society going speedily to the dogs. Art loving, and considerably musical (many a dizzy venture at the Opera-house had owed its audition to her), she had, despitethe self-centeredness of her nature, done not a little to render more brilliant the charming city it amused her with such vehemence to abuse.
One softly gloomy morning, preceding Madame Ruiz’s firstcotillonof the Season, the lodge-keeper of the Villa Alba, a negress, like some great, violet bug, was surprised, while tending the brightly-hanging Grape-Fruit in the drive, by an imperative knocking on the gate. At such a matutinal hour only trashy errand-boys shouldering baskets might be expected to call, and giving the summons no heed, the mulatress continued her work.
The Villa Alba, half-buried in spreading awnings, and surrounded by many noble trees, stood but a short distance off the main road, its pleasaunces enclosed by flower-enshrouded walls, all a-zig-zag, like the folds of a screen. Beloved of lizards, and velvet-backed humming-birds, the shaded gardens led on one side to the sea.
“To make such a noise at dis hour,” the negress murmured, going grumblingly atlength to the gate, disclosing, upon opening, a gentleman in middle-life, with a toothbrush moustache and a sapphire ring.
“De mist’ess still in bed, sah.”
“In bed?”
“She out bery late, sah, but you find Miss Edwards up.”
And with a nod of thanks, the visitor directed his footsteps discreetly towards the house.
Although not, precisely,inher bed when the caller, shortly afterwards, was announced, Madame Ruiz was nevertheless as yet in deshabille.
“Tiresome man, what does he want to see me about?” she exclaimed, gathering around her a brocaded-wrap formed of a priestly cope.
“He referred to a lease, ma’am,” the maid replied.
“A lease!” Madame Ruiz raised eyes dark with spleen.
The visit of her agent, or man of affairs, was apt to ruffle her composure for the day: “Tell him to leave it, and go,” shecommanded, selecting a nectarine from a basket of iced-fruits beside her.
Removing reflectively the sensitive skin, her mind evoked, in ironic review, the chief salient events of society, scheduled to take place on the face of the map in the course of the day.
The marriage of the Count de Nozhel, in Touraine, to Mrs. Exelmans of Cincinnati, the divorce of poor Lady Luckcock in London (it seemed quite certain that one of the five co-respondents was the little carrot-haired Lord Dubelly again), the last “pomps,” at Vienna, of Princess de SeeyohlnéeMitchening-Meyong (Peace to her soul! She had led her life).... The christening in Madrid of the girl-twins of the Queen of Spain....
“At her time, I reallydon’tunderstand it,” Madame Ruiz murmured to herself aloud, glancing, as though for an explanation, about the room.
Through the flowing folds of the mosquito curtains of the bed, that swept a cool, flagged-floor, spread with skins, showed theoratory, with its waxen flowers, and pendant flickering lights, that burned, night and day, before a Leonardo saint with a treacherous smile. Beyond the little recess came a lacquer commode, bearing a masterly marble group, depicting a pair of amorous hermaphrodites amusing themselves, while above, against the spacious wainscoting of the wall, a painting of a man, elegantly corseted, with a Violet in his moustache, “Study of a Parisian,” was suspended, and which, with its pendant “Portrait of a Lady,” signed Van Dongen, were the chief outstanding objects that the room contained.
“One would have thought that at forty she would have given up having babies,” Madame Ruiz mused, choosing a glossy cherry from the basket at her side.
Through the open window a sound of distant music caught her ear.
“Ah! If only he were less weak,” she sighed, her thoughts turning towards the player, who seemed to be enamoured of the opening movement (rapturously repeated) ofL’Après midi d’un Faune.
The venetorial habits of Vittorio Ruiz had been from his earliest years the source of his mother’s constant chagrin and despair. At the age of five he had assaulted his Nurse, and, steadily onward, his passions had grown and grown....
“It’s the fault of the wicked climate,” Madame Ruiz reflected, as her companion, Miss Edwards, came in with the post.
“Thanks, Eurydice,” she murmured, smilingly exchanging a butterfly kiss.
“It’s going to be oh so hot, to-day!”
“Is it, dear?”
“Intense,” Miss Edwards predicted, fluttering a gay-daubed paper fan.
Sprite-like, with a little strained ghost-face beneath a silver shock of hair, it seemed as if her long blue eyes had absorbed the Cunan sea.
“Do you remember the giant with the beard?” she asked, “at the Presidency fête?”
“Do I?”
“And we wondered who he could be!”
“Well?”
“He’s the painter of Women’s Backs, my dear!”
“The painter of women’swhat?”
“An artist.”
“Oh.”
“I wanted to know if you’d advise me to sit.”
“Your back is charming, dear,c’est un dos d’élite.”
“I doubt, though, it’s classic,” Miss Edwards murmured, pirouetting slowly before the glass.
But Madame Ruiz was perusing her correspondence, and seemed to be absorbed.
“They’re to be married, in Munich, on the fifth,” she chirruped.
“Who?”
“Elsie and Baron Sitmar.”
“Ah, Ta-ra, dear! In those far worlds....” Miss Edwards impatiently exclaimed, opening wide a window and leaning out.
Beneath the flame-trees, with their spreading tops, one mass of crimson flower, coolly, white-garbed gardeners, with nakedfeet and big bell-shaped hats of straw, were sweeping slowly, as in some rhythmic dance, the flamboyant blossoms that had fallen to the ground.
“Wasn’t little Madame Haase, dear, born Kattie von Guggenheim?”
“I really don’t know,” Miss Edwards returned, flapping away a fly with her fan.
“This villainous climate! My memory’s going....”
“I wish I cared for Cuna less, that’s all!” Miss Edwards said, her glance following a humming-bird, poised in air, above the sparkling turquoise of a fountain.
“Captain Moonlight ... duty ... (tedious word) ... can’t come!”
“Oh?”
“Such a dull post,” Madame Ruiz murmured, pausing to listen to the persuasive tenor-voice of her son.
“Little mauve nigger boy,I t’ink you break my heart!”
“Little mauve nigger boy,I t’ink you break my heart!”
“Little mauve nigger boy,I t’ink you break my heart!”
“Little mauve nigger boy,
I t’ink you break my heart!”
“My poor Vitti! Bless him.”
“He was out last night with some Chinese she.”
“I understood him to be going toPelléas and Mélisande.”
“He came to the Opera-house, but only for a minute.”
“Dios!”
“And, oh, dearest,” Miss Edwards dropped her cheek to her hand.
“Was Hatso as ever delicious?” Madame Ruiz asked, changing the topic as her woman returned, followed by a pomeranian of parts, “Snob”; a dog beautiful as a child.
“We had Gebhardt instead.”
“In Mélisande she’s so huge,” Madame Ruiz commented, eyeing severely the legal-looking packet which her maid had brought her.
“Business, Camilla;howI pity you!”
Madame Ruiz sighed.
“It seems,” she said, “that for the next nine-and-ninety years, I have let a Villa to a Mr. and Mrs. Ahmadou Mouth.”
Floor of copper, floor of gold.... Beyond the custom-house door, ajar the street at sunrise seemed aflame.
“Have you nothing, young man, to declare?”
“... Butterflies!”
“Exempt of duty. Pass.”
Floor of silver, floor of pearl....
Trailing a muslin net, and laughing for happiness, Charlie Mouth marched into the town.
Oh, Cuna-Cuna! Little city of Lies and Peril! How many careless young nigger boys have gone thus to seal their Doom?
Although the Sun-god was scarcely risen, already the radiant street teemed with life.
Veiled dames, flirting fans, bent on church or market, were issuing everywherefrom their doors, and the air was vibrant with the sweet voice of bells.
To rejoin his parents promptly at their hotel was a promise he was tempted to forget.
Along streets all fresh and blue in the shade of falling awnings, it was fine, indeed, to loiter. Beneath the portico of a church, a running fountain drew his steps aside. Too shy to strip and squat in the basin, he was glad to bathe freely his head, feet and chest: then stirred by curiosity to throw a glance at the building, he lifted the long yellow nets that veiled the door.
It was the fashionable church of La Favavoa, and the extemporary address of the Archbishop of Cuna was in full, and impassioned, swing.
“Imagine the world, my friends, had Christ been born a girl!” he was saying in tones of tender dismay as Charlie entered.
Subsiding bashfully to a bench, Charlie gazed around.
So many sparkling fans. One, a delicatelight mauve one: “Shucks! If only you wa’ butterflies!” he breathed, contemplating with avidity the nonchalant throng; then perceiving a richer specimen splashed with silver of the same amative tint: “Oh you lil beauty!” And, clutching his itching net to his heart, he regretfully withdrew.
Sauntering leisurely through the cool, Mimosa-shaded streets, he approached, as he guessed, the Presidency. A score of shoeblacks, lolled at cards, or gossip, before its gilded pales. Amazed at their audacity (for the President had threatened more than once to “wring the Public’s neck”), Charlie hastened by. Public gardens, brilliant with sarracenias, lay just beyond the palace, where a music-pavilion, surrounded by palms and rocking-chairs, appeared a favourite, and much-frequented, resort; from here he observed the Cunan bay strewn with sloops and white-sailed yachts, asleep upon the tide. Strolling on, he found himself in the busy vicinity of the Market. Although larger, and more varied,it resembled, in other respects, the village one at home.
“Say, honey, say”—crouching in the dust before a little pyre of mangoes, a lean-armed woman besought him to buy.
Pursued by a confusion of voices, he threaded his way deftly down an alley dressed with booths. Pomegranates, some open with their crimson seeds displayed, banana-combs, and big, veined watermelons, lay heaped on every side.
“I could do wid a slice ob watteh-million,” he reflected: “but to lick an ice-cream dat tempt me more!” Nor would the noble fruit of the baobab, the paw-paw, or the pine, turn him from his fancy.
But no ice-cream stand met his eye, and presently he resigned himself to sit down upon his heels, in the shade of a potter’s stall, and consider the passing crowd.
Missionaries with freckled hands and hairy, care-worn faces, followed by pale girls wielding tambourines of the Army of the Soul, foppish nigger bucks in panamas and palm-beach suits so cocky, Chinamenwith osier baskets their nostalgic eyes aswoon, heavily straw-hatted nuns trailing their dust-coloured rags, and suddenly, oh could it be, but there was no mistaking that golden waddle: “Mamma!”
Mamma, Mammee, Mrs. Ahmadou Mouth. All in white, with snow-white shoes and hose so fine, he hardly dare.
“Mammee, Mammee, oh, Mammee....”
“Sonny mine! My lil boy!”
“Mammee.”
“Just to say!”
And, oh, honies! Close behind, behold Miami, and Edna too: The Miss Lips, the fair Lips, the smiling Lips. How spry each looked. The elder (grown a trifle thinner), sweetà ravirin tomato-red, while her sister, plump as a corn-fattened partridge, and very perceptibly powdered, seemed like the flower of the prairie sugar-cane when it breaks into bloom.
“We’ve been to a Music-hall, an’ a pahty, an’ Snowball has dropped black kittens.” Forestalling Miami, Edna rapped it out.
“Oh shucks!”
“An’ since we go into S’ciety, we keep a boy in buttons!”
Mrs. Mouth turned about.
“Where is dat ijit coon?”
“He stay behind to bargain for de peewee birds, Mammee, fo’ to make de taht.”
“De swindling tortoise.”
“An’ dair are no vacancies at de University: not fo’ any ob us!” Edna further retailed, going off into a spasm of giggles.
She was swinging a wicker basket, from which there dangled the silver forked tail of a fish.
“Fo’ goodness’ sake gib dat sea-porcupine to Ibum, Chile,” Mrs. Mouth commanded, as a perspiring niggerling in livery presented himself.
“Ibum, his arms are full already.”
“Just come along all to de Villa now! It dat mignon an’ all so nice. An’ after de collation,” Mrs. Mouth (shocked on the servant’s account at her son’s nude neck) raised her voice: “we go to de habadasher in Palmbranch Avenue, an’ I buy you an Eton colleh!”
“Prancing Nigger, I t’ink it bery strange, dat Madame Ruiz, she nebba call.”
“Sh’o.”
“In August-Town, S’ciety less stuck-up dan heah!”
Ensconced in rocking-chairs, in the shade of the ample porch of the Villa Vista Hermosa, Mr. and Mrs. Mouth had been holding a desultorytête-à-tête.
It was a Sabbath evening, and a sound of reedy pipes and bafalons, from a neighbouring café, filled with a feverish sadness the brilliantly lamp-lit street.
“De airs ob de nabehs, dat dair affair, what matter mo’, am de chillen’s schoolin’.”
“Prancing Nigger, I hope your Son an’ Daughters will yet take dair Degrees, an’ ifnot from de University, den from Home. From heah.”
“Hey-ho-day, an’ dat would be a miracle!” Mr. Mouth mirthlessly laughed.
“Dose chillens hab learnt quite a lot already.”
“’Bout de shaps an’ cynemas!”
Mrs. Mouth disdained a reply.
She had taken the girls to the gallery at the Opera one night to hear “Louise,” but they had come out, by tacit agreement, in the middle of it: the plainness of Louise’s blouse, and the lack of tunes ... added to which, the suffocation of the gallery.... And—once bit twice shy—they had not gone back again.
“All your fambly need, Prancing Nigger, is social opportunity! But what is de good ob de Babtist parson?”
Mr. Mouth sketched a gesture.
“Sh’o, Edna, she some young yet.... But Miami datdistinguée; an’, doh I her mother, b’lieb me dat is one ob de choicest girls I see; an ’dat’s de trute.”
“It queer,” Mr. Mouth abstruselymurmured, “how many skeeter-bugs dair are ’bout dis ebenin’!”
“De begonias in de window-boxes most lik’ly draw dem. But as I was saying, Prancing Nigger, I t’ink it bery strange dat Madame Ruiz nebba call.”
“P’raps, she out ob town.”
“Accordin’ to de paper, she bin habing her back painted, but what dat fo’ I dunno.”
“Ah shouldn’t wonder ef she hab some trouble ob a dorsal kind; same as me gramma mumma long agone.”
“Dair’d be no harm in sendin’ one ob de chillens to enquire. Wha’ you t’ink, sah?” Mrs. Mouth demanded, plucking from off the porch a pale hanging flower with a languorous scent.
Mr. Mouth glanced apprehensively skyward.
The mutters of thunder and intermittent lightning of the finest nights.
“It’s a misfortnit we eber left Mediavilla,” he exclaimed uneasily, as a falling star, known as a thief star, sped swiftly down the sky.
“Prancing Nigger,” Mrs. Mouth rose, remarking, “befo’ you start to grummle, I leab you alone to your Jereymiads!”
“A misfortnit sho’ nuff,” he mused, and regret for the savannah country, and the tall palm-trees of his village, oppressed his heart. Moreover, his means (derived from the cultivation of theMusa paradisica, or Banana) seemed likely to prove erelong inadequate to support the whims of his wife, who after a lifetime of contented nudity, appeared to be now almost insatiable for dress.
A discordant noise from above interrupted the trend of his thoughts.
“Sh’o, she plays wid it like a toy,” he sighed, as the sound occurred again.
“Prancing Nigger, de water-supply cut off!”
“It’s de Lord’s will.”
“Dair’s not a drop, my lub, in de privy.”
“’Cos it always in use!”
“I b’lieb dat lil half-caste Ibum, ’cos I threaten to gib him notice, do somet’in’ out ob malice to de chain.”
“Whom de Lord loveth, He chasteneth!” Mr. Mouth observed, “an’ dose bery words (ef you look) you will find in de twelfth chapter, an’ de sixth berse ob de Book ob Hebrews.”
“Prancing Nigger, you datways selfish! Always t’inkin ’ob your soul, instead ob your obligations towards de fambly.”
“Why, wha’ mo’ can I do dan I’ve done?”
Mrs. Mouth faintly shrugged.
“I had hoped,” she said, “dat Nini would hab bin ob use to de girls, but dat seem now impossible!” For Mrs. Snagg had been traced to a house of ill-fame, where, it appeared, she was an exponent of the Hodeidah—a lascive Cunan dance.
“Understand dat any sort ob intimacy ’tween de Villa an’ deCloserie des LilasAh must flatly forbid.”
“Prancing Nigger, as ef I should take your innocent chillens to call on po’ Nini; not dat eberyt’ing about her at deCloserieis not elegant an’ nice. Sh’o, some ob de inmates ob dat establishment possess mo’ diamonds dan dair betters do outside!You’d be surprised ef you could see what two ob de girls dair, Dinah an’ Lew....”
“Enuf!”
“It isn’t always Virtue, Prancing Nigger, dat come off best!” And Mrs. Mouth might have offered further observations on the matter of ethics, had not her husband left her.
Past the Presidency and the public park, the Theatres Maxine Bush, Eden-Garden, and Apollo, along the Avenida, and the Jazz Halls by the wharf, past little suburban shops, and old, deserted churchyards where bloom geraniums, through streets of squalid houses, and onward skirting pleasure lawns and orchards, bibbitty-bobbitty, beneath the sovereign brightness of the sky, the Farananka tram crawled along.
Surveying the landscape listlessly through the sticks of her fan, Miss Edna Mouth grew slightly bored—alas, poor child; couldst thou have guessed the blazing brightness of thy Star, thou wouldst doubtless have been more alert!
“Sh’o, it dat far an’ tejus,” she observedto the conductor, lifting upon him the sharp-soft eyes of a parroquet.
She was looking bewitching in a frock of silverishmousseleineand a violet tallyho cap, and dangled upon her knees an intoxicating sheaf of blossoms, known as Marvel of Peru.
“Hab patience, lil Missey, an’ we soon be dah.”
* * * * *
“He tells me, dear child, he tells me,” Madame Ruiz was rounding a garden path, upon the arm of her son, “he tells me, Vitti, that the systole and diastole of my heart’s muscles are slightly inflamed; and that I ought, darling, to beverycareful....”
Followed by a handsome borzoi, and the pomeranian Snob, the pair were taking their usual post-prandial exercise beneath the trees.
“Let me come, Mother, dear,” he murmured without interrupting, “over the other side of you; I always like to be on the right side of my profile!”
“And, really, since the affair of Madamede Bazvalon, my health has hardly been what it was.”
“That foolish little woman,” he uncomfortably laughed.
“He tells me my nerves need rest,” she declared, looking pathetically up at him.
He had the nose of an actress, and ink-black hair streaked with gold, his eyes seemed to be covered with the freshest of fresh dark pollen, while nothing could exceed the vivid pallor of his cheeks, or the bright sanguine of his mouth.
“You go out so much, Mother.”
“Not so much!”
“So very much.”
“And he forbids me my opera-box for the rest of the week! So last night I sat at home, dear child, reading the Life of Lazarillo de Tormes.”
“I don’t give a damn,” he said, “for any of your doctors.”
“So vexing, though; and apparently Lady Bird has been at death’s door, and poor Peggy Povey too. It seems she got wet on the way to the Races; and reallyI wassorryfor her when I saw her in the paddock; for the oats and the corn, and the wheat and the tares, and the barley and the rye, and all the rest of the reeds and grasses in her pretty Lancret hat, looked like nothing so much as manure.”
“I adore to folly her schoolboy’s moustache!”
“My dear, Age is the one disaster,” Madame Ruiz remarked, raising the rosy dome of her sunshade a degree higher above her head.
They were pacing a walk radiant with trees and flowers as some magician’s garden, that commanded a sweeping prospect of long, livid sands, against a white green sea.
“There would seem to be several new yachts, darling,” Madame Ruiz observed.
“The Duke of Wellclose with his duchess (on their wedding-tour) arrived with the tide.”
“Poor man; I’m told that he only drove to the church after thirty brandies!”
“And theSea-Thistle, with Lady Violet Valesbridge, and,oh, such a crowd.”
“She used to be known as ‘The Cat of Curzon Street,’ but I hear she is still quite incredibly pretty,” Madame Ruiz murmured, turning to admire a somnolent peacock, with moping fan, poised upon the curved still arm of a marble mænad.
“How sweet something smells.”
“It’s the China lilies.”
“I believe it’s my handkerchief ...” he said.
“Vain wicked boy; ah, if you would but decide, and marry some nice, intelligent girl.”
“I’m too young yet.”
“You’retwenty-six!”
“And past the age of folly-o,” he made airy answer, drawing from his breast-pocket a flat, jewel-encrusted case, and lighting a cigarette.
“Think of the many men, darling, of twenty-six....” Madame Ruiz broke off, focusing the fruit-bearing summit of a slender arecia palm.
“Foll-foll-folly-o!” he laughed.
“I think I’m going in.”
“Oh, why?”
“Because,” Madame Ruiz repressed a yawn, “because, dear, I feel armchairish.”
With a kiss of the finger tips (decidedly distinguished hands had Vittorio Ruiz), he turned away.
Joying frankly in excess, the fiery noontide hour had a special charm for him.
It was the hour, to be sure, of “the Fawn!”
“Aho, Ahi, Aha!” he carolled, descending half-trippingly a few white winding stairs, that brought him upon a fountain. Palms, with their floating fronds, radiating light, stood all around.
It was here “the creative mood” would sometimes take him, for he possessed no small measure of talent of his own.
HisThree Hodeidahs, andFive Phallic Dances for Pianoforte and Orchestra, otherwise known as “Suite in Green,” had taken the whole concert world by storm, and, now, growing more audacious, he was engaged upon an opera to be known, by and by, asSumaïa.
“Ah Atthis, it was Sappho who told me—” tentatively he sought an air.
A touch of banter there.
“Ah Atthis—” One must make the girl feel that her little secret is out ...; quiz her; but let her know, and pretty plain, that the Poetess had been talking....
“Ah Atthis—”
But somehow or other the lyric mood to-day was obdurate, and not to be persuaded.
“I blame the oysters! After oysters—” he murmured, turning about to ascertain what was exciting the dogs.
She was coming up the drive with her face to the sun, her body shielded behind a spreading bouquet of circumstance.
“It’s all right; they’ll not hurt you.”
“Sh’o, I not afraid!”
“Tell me who it is you wish to see.”
“Mammee send me wid dese flowehs....”
“Oh! But how scrumptious.”
“It strange how dey call de bees; honeybees, sweat-bees, bumble-bees an’ all!” she murmured, shaking the blossoms into the air.
“That’s only natural,” he returned, his hand falling lightly to her arm.
“Madame Ruiz is in?”
“She is: but she is resting; and something tells me,” he suavely added, indicating a grassy bank, “you might care to repose yourself too.”
And indeed after such a long and rambling course, she was glad to accept.
“De groung’s as soft as a cushom,” she purred, sinking with nonchalance to the grass.
“You’d find it,” he said, “even softer, if you’ll try it nearer me.”
“Dis a mighty pretty place!”
“And you—” but he checked his tongue.
“Fo’ a villa so grand, dair must be mo’ dan one privy?”
“Some six, or seven!”
“Ours is broke.”
“You should get it mended.”
“De aggervatines’!” she wriggled.
“Tell me about them.”
And so, not without digressions, she unfolded her life.
“Then you, Charlie, and Mimi are here, dear, to study?”
“As soon as de University is able to receibe us; but dair’s a waiting list already dat long.”
“And what do you do with all your spare time?”
“Goin’ round de shops takes up some ob it. An’ den ob course, dair’s de Cinés. Oh, I love de Lara. We went last night to seeSouls in Hell.”
“I’ve not been!”
“Oh it was choice.”
“Was it? Why?”
“De scene ob dat story,” she told him, “happen foreign; ’way crost de big watteh, on de odder side ob de world ... an’ de principal gal, she merried to a man who neglect her (ebery ebenin’ he go to pahtys an’ biars), while all de time his wife she sit at home wid her lil pickney at her breas’. But dair anodder gemplum (a friend ob de fambly) an’ he afiah to woe her; but she only shake de head, slowly, from side to side, an’ send dat man away. Den dehubsom lose his fortune, an’, oh, she dat ’stracted, she dat crazed ... at last, she take to gamblin,’ but dat only make t’ings worse. Den de friend ob de fambly come back, an’ offer to pay all de expenses ef only she unbend: so she cry, an’ she cry, ’cos it grieb her to leab her pickney to de neglect ob de serbants (dair was three ob dem, an old buckler, a boy, an’ a cook), but, in de end, she do, an’ frtt! away she go in de fambly carriage. An’ den, bimeby, you see dem in de bedroom doin’ a bit ob funning.”
“What?”
“Oh ki; it put me in de gigglemints....”
“Exquisite kid.”
“Sh’o, de coffee-concerts an’ de pictchures, I don’t nebba tiah ob dem.”
“Bad baby.”
“I turned thirteen.”
“You are?”
“By de Law ob de Island, I a spinster ob age!”
“I might have guessed it was the Bar! These Law-students,” he murmured, addressing the birds.
“Sh’o, it’s de trute,” she pouted, with a languishing glance through the sticks of her fan.
“I don’t doubt it,” he answered, taking lightly her hand.
“Mercy,” she marvelled: “is dat a watch dah, on your arm?”
“Dark, bright baby!”
“Oh, an’ de lil ‘V.R.’ all in precious stones so blue.” Her frail fingers caressed his wrist.
“Exquisite kid.” She was in his arms.
“Vitti, Vitti!—” It was the voice of Eurydice Edwards. Her face was strained and quivering. She seemed about to faint.
Ever so lovely are the young men of Cuna-Cuna—Juarez, Jotifa, Enid—(these, from many, to distinguish but a few)—but none so delicate, charming, and squeamish, as Charlie Mouth.
“Attractive little Rose....” “What a devil of a dream ...” the avid belles would exclaim when he walked abroad, while impassioned widows would whisper “Peach!”
One evening, towards sundown, just as the city lifts its awnings, and the deserted streets start seething with delight, he left his home to enjoy the grateful air. It had been a day of singular oppressiveness, and not expecting overmuch of the vesperal breezes, he had borrowed his mother’s small Pompadour fan.
Ah, little did that nigger boy know as he strolled along what novel emotions that promenade held in store!
Disrelishing the dust of the Avenida, he directed his steps towards the Park.
He had formed already an acquaintanceship with several young men, members, it seemed, of the University, and these he would sometimes join, about this hour, beneath the Calabash-trees in the Marcella Gardens.
There was Abe, a lad of fifteen, whose father ran a Jazz Hall on the harbour-beach, and Ramon, who was destined to enter the Church, and the intriguing Esmé, whose dream was the Stage, and who was supposed to be “in touch” with Miss Maxine Bush, and there was Pedro, Pedro ardent and obese, who seemed to imagine that to be a dress-designer to foreign Princesses would yield his several talents a thrice-blessed harvest.
Brooding on these and other matters, Charlie found himself in Liberty Square.
Here, the Cunan Poet, Samba Marcella’seffigy arose—that “sable singer of Revolt.”
Aloft, on a pedestal, soared the Poet, laurel-crowned, thick-lipped, woolly, a large weeping Genius, with a bold taste for draperies, hovering just beneath; her one eye closed, the other open, giving her an air of winking confidentially at the passers-by: “Up Cunans, up! To arms, to arms!” he quoted, lingering to watch the playful swallows wheeling among the tubs of rose-oleanders that stood around.
And a thirst, less for bloodshed, than for a sherbet, seized him.
It was a square noted for the frequency of its bars, and many of their names, in flickering lights, shewed palely forth already.
Cuna! City of Moonstones; how færic art thou in the blue blur of dusk!
Costa Rica. Chile Bar. To the Island of June....
Red roses, against tall mirrors, reflecting the falling night.
Seated before a cloudy cocktail, a girlwith gold cheeks like the flesh of peaches, addressed him softly from behind: “Listen, lion!”
But he merely smiled on himself in the polished mirrors, displaying moist-gleaming teeth and coral gums.
An aroma of aromatic cloves ... a mystic murmur of ice....
A little dazed after a Ron Bacardi, he moved away: “Shine, sah?” the inveigling squeak of a shoeblack followed him.
Sauntering by the dusty benches by the pavement-side, where white-robed negresses sat communing in twos and threes, he attained the Avenue Messalina with its spreading palms, whose fronds hung nerveless in the windless air.
Tinkling mandolines from restaurant gardens, light laughter, and shifting lights.
Passing before the Café de Cuna, and a people’s “Dancing,” he roamed leisurely along. Incipient Cyprians, led by vigilant, blanched-faced queens, youths of a certain life, known as bwam-wam bwam-wams,gaunt pariah dogs with questing eyes, all equally were on the prowl. Beneath the Pharaohic pilasters of the Theatre Maxine Bush, a street crowd had formed before a notice described “Important,” which informed the Public that, owing to a “temporary hoarseness,” the rôle of Miss Maxine Bush would be taken, on that occasion, by Miss Pauline Collier.
The Marcella Gardens lay towards the end of the Avenue, in the animated vicinity of the Opera. Pursuing the glittering thoroughfare, it was interesting to observe the pleasure announcements of the various theatres, picked out in signs of fire:Aïda:The Jewels of the Madonna:Clara Novotny and Lily Lima’s Season.
Vending bags of roasted peanuts, or sapadillos and avocado pears, insistent small boys were importuning the throng.
“Go away; I can’t be bodder,” Charlie was saying, when he seemed to slip; it was as though the pavement were a carpet snatched from under him, and looking round, he was surprised to see, in aConfectioner’s window, a couple of marble-topped tables start merrily waltzing together.
Driven onward by those behind, he began stumblingly to run towards the Park. It was the general goal. Footing it a little ahead, two loose women and a gay young man (pursued by a waiter with a napkin and a bill), together with the horrified, half-crazed crowd; all, helter-skelter, were intent upon the Park.
Above the Calabash-trees, bronze, demoniac, the moon gleamed sourly from a starless sky, and although not a breath of air was stirring, the crests of the loftiest palms were set arustling by the vibration at their roots.
“Oh, will nobodystopit?” a terror-struck lady implored.
Feeling quite white and clasping a fetish, Charlie sank all panting to the ground.
Safe from falling chimney-pots and signboards, that, for “Pure Vaseline,” for instance, had all but caught him, he had much to be thankful for.
“Sh’o nuff, dat was a close shave,” he gasped, gazing dazed about him.
Clustered back to back near by upon the grass, three stolid matrons, matrons of hoary England, evidently not without previous earthquake experience, were ignoring resolutely the repeated shocks:
“I always follow the Fashions, dear, at a distance!” one was saying: “this little gingham gown I’m wearing, I had made for me after a design I found in a newspaper at my hotel.”
“It must have been a pretty old one, dear—I mean the paper, of course.”
“New things are only those you know that have been forgotten.”
“Mary ... there’s a sharp pin, sweet, at the back of your ...Oh!”
Venturing upon his legs, Charlie turned away.
By the Park palings a few “Salvationists” were holding forth, while in the sweep before the bandstand, the artists from the Opera in their costumes of Aïda, were causing almost a greater panic, amongthe ignorant, than the earthquake was itself. A crowd, promiscuous rather than representative, composed variously of chauffeurs (making a wretched pretence, poor chaps, of seeking out their masters), Cyprians, patricians (these in opera cloaks and sparkling diamonds), tourists, for whom the Hodeidah girls wouldnotdance that night, and bwam-wam bwam-wams, whose equivocal behaviour, indeed, was perhaps more shocking even than the shocks set the pent Park ahum. Yet, notwithstanding the upheavals of Nature, certain persons there were bravely making new plans.
“How I wish I could, dear! But I shall be having a houseful of women over Sunday—that’s to say.”
“Then come the week after.”
“Thanks, then, Iwill.”
Hoping to meet with Abe, Charlie took a pathway, flanked with rows of tangled roses, whose leaves shook down at every step.
And it occurred to him with alarming force that perhaps he was an orphan.
Papee, Mammee, Mimi and lil Edna—the villa drawing-room on the floor....
His heart stopped still.
“An’ dey in de spirrit world—in heaven hereafter!” He glanced with awe at the moon’s dark disk.
“All in dair cotton shrouds....”
What if he should die and go to the Bad Place below?
“I mizzable sinneh, Lord. You heah, Sah? You heah me say dat? Oh, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus,” and weeping, he threw himself down among a bed of flowers.
When he raised his face it was towards a sky all primrose and silver pink. Sunk deep in his dew-laved bower, it was sweet to behold the light. Above him great spikes of blossom were stirring in the idle wind, while birds were chaunting voluntaries among the palms. And in thanksgiving, too, arose the matins bells. From Our Lady of the Pillar, from the church of La Favavoa in the West, from Saint Sebastian, from Our Lady of the Sea, from Our Lady of Mount Carmel, from Santa Theresa, from Saint Francis of the Poor.
But although by the grace of Providence the city of Cuna-Cuna had been spared, other parts of the island had sustained irremediable loss. In the Province of Casuby, beyond the May Day Mountains, many a fair Banana, or Sugar estate, had been pitifully wrecked, yet what caused perhaps the widest regret among the Cunan public was the destruction of the famous convent of Sasabonsam. One of the beauties of the island, one of the gems of tropic architecture, celebrated, made immortal (inThe Picnic), by the Poet Marcella, had disappeared. A Relief Fund for those afflicted had at once been started, and as if this were not enough, the doors of the Villa Alba were about to be thrown open for “An Evening of Song and Gala,” in the causes of charity.
“Prancing Nigger, dis an event to take exvantage ob; dis not a lil t’ing love to be sneezed at at all,” Mrs. Mouth eagerly said upon hearing the news, and she had gone about ever since, reciting the names of the list of Patronesses, including that of the Cunan Archbishop.
It was the auspicious evening.
In their commodious, jointly-shared bedroom, the Miss Lips, the fair Lips, the smiling Lips were maiding one another in what they both considered to be the “Parisian way”; a way, it appeared, that involved much nudging, arch laughter, and, even, some prodding.
“In love? Up to my ankles! Oh, yes.” Edna blithely chuckled.
“Up to your topnot!” her sister returned, making as if to pull it.
But with the butt end of the curling-tongs, Edna waved her away.
Since her visit to the Villa Alba “me, an’ Misteh Ruiz” was all her talk, and to be his reigning mistress the summit of her dreams.
“Come on man wid dose tongs; ’cos I want ’em myself,” Miami murmured, pinning a knot of the sweet Night Jasmyn deftly above her ear.
Its aroma evoked Bamboo.
Oh, why had he not joined her? Why did he delay? Had he forgotten their delight among the trees, the giant silk-cotton-trees, with the hammer-tree-frogs chanting in the dark: Rig-a-jig-jig, rig-a-jig-jig?
“Which you like de best man, dis lil necklash or de odder?” Edna asked, essaying a strand of orchid tinted beads about her throat.
“I’d wear dem both,” her sister advised.
“I t’ink, on de whole, I wear de odder; de one he gib me de time he take exvantage ob my innocence.”
“Since dose imitation pearls, honey,—he gib you anyt’ing else?”
“No; but he dat generous! He say he mean to make me a lil pickney gal darter: An’, oh, won’t dat be a day,” Edna fluted, breaking off at the sound of her mother’s voice in the corridor.
“... and tell de cabman to take de fly-bonnets off de horses,” she was instructing Ibum as she entered the room.
She had a gown of the new mignonette satin, with “episcopal” sleeves lined with red.
“Come, girls, de cab is waiting; but perhaps you no savey dat.”
They didn’t; and, for some time, dire was the confusion.
In the Peacock drawing-room of the Villa Alba, the stirring ballet music fromIsfahanfilled the vast room with its thrilling madness. Upon a raised estrade, a corps of dancing boys, from Sankor, had glided amid a murmur of applause.
The combination of charity and amusement had brought together a crowded and cosmopolitan assembly, and early though it was, it was evident already that with many more new advents there would be a shortage of chairs. From their yachts had come several distinguished birds of passage, exhaling an atmosphere of Paris and Park Lane.
Wielding a heavy bouquet of black feathers, Madame Ruiz, robed in a gown of malmaison cloth-of-silver, watched the dancers from an alcove by the door.
Their swaying torsos, and weaving gliding feet, fettered with chains of orchids and hung with bells, held a fascination for her.
“My dear, they beat the Hodeidahs! I’m sure I never saw anything like it,” the Duchess of Wellclose remarked admiringly: “That little one Fred,” she murmured, turning towards the Duke.
A piece of praise, a staid, small body in a demure lace cap chanced to hear.
This was “the incomparable” Miss McAdam, the veteran ballet mistress of the Opera-house, and inventrix of the dance. Born in the frigid High Street of Aberdeen, “Alice,” as she was universally known among enthusiastic patrons of the ballet, had come originally to the tropics as companion to a widowed clergyman in Orders, when, as she would relate (in her picturesque, native brogue), at the sight ofNatureher soul had awoke. Self-expressionhad come with a rush; and, now that she was ballet mistress of the Cunan opera, some of the daringensemblesof the Scottish spinster would embarrass even the good Cunans themselves.
“I’ve warned the lads,” she whispered to Madame Ruiz: “to cut their final figure, on account of the Archbishop. But young boys are so excitable, and I expect they’ll forget!”
Gazing on their perfect backs, Madame Ruiz could not but mourn the fate of the Painter, who, like Dalou, had specialized almost exclusively on this aspect of the human form; for, alas, that admirable Artist had been claimed by the Quake; and although his portrait of Madame Ruiz remained unfinished ... there was still a mole, nevertheless, in gratitude, and as a mark of respect, she had sent her Rolls car to the Mass in honour of his obsequies, with thecrêpeoff an old black dinner-dress tied across the lamps.
“I see they’re going to,” Miss McAdam murmured, craning a little to focus theArchbishop, then descanting to two ladies with deep purple fans.
“Ah, well! It’s what they do inIsfahan,” Madame Ruiz commented, turning to greet her neighbour Lady Bird.
“Am I late for Gebhardt?” she asked, as if Life itself hinged upon the reply.
A quietly silly woman, Madame Ruiz was often obliged to lament the absence of intellect at her door: accounting for it as the consequence of a weakness for negroes, combined with a hopeless passion for the Regius Professor of Greek at Oxford.
But the strident cries of the dancers, and the increasing volume of the music, discouraged all talk, though ladies with collection-boxes (biding their time) were beginning furtively to select their next quarry.
Countess Katty Taosay,néeSoderini, a little woman and sure of the giants, could feel in her psychic veins which men were most likely to empty their pockets: English Consul ... pale and interesting, he not refuse to stoop and fumble, nor Follinsbe“Peter,” the slender husband of a fashionable wife, or Charlie Campfire, a young boy like an injured camel, heir to vast banana estates, the darling, and six foot high if an inch.
“Why do big men like little women?” she wondered, waving a fan powdered with bluepaillettes: and she was still casting about for a reason, when the hectic music stopped.
And now the room echoed briefly with applause, while admiration was divided between the superexcellence of the dancers, and the living beauty of the rugs which their feet had trod—rare rugs from Bokhara-i-Shareef, and Kairouan-city-of-Prayer, lent by the mistress of the house.
Entering on the last hand-clap, Mr. and Mrs. Mouth, followed by their daughters, felt, each, in their several ways, they might expect to enjoy themselves.
“Prancing Nigger, what afurore!” Mrs. Mouth exclaimed. “You b’lieb, I hope, now, dat our tickets was worth de money.”
Plucking at the swallow-tails of anevening “West-End,” Mr. Mouth was disinclined to reopen a threadbare topic.
“It queah how few neegah dair be,” he observed, scanning the brilliant audience, many of whom, taking advantage of an interval, were flocking towards a buffet in an adjoining conservatory.
“Prancing Nigger, I feel I could do wid a glass ob champagne.”
Passing across a corridor, it would have been interesting to have explored the spacious vistas that loomed beyond: “Dat must be one ob de priveys,” Edna murmured, pointing to a distant door.
“Seben, Chile, did you say?”
“If not more!”
“She seem fond ob flowehs,” Mr. Mouth commented, pausing to notice the various plants that lined the way: from the roof swung showery azure flowers that commingled with the theatrically-hued cañas, set out in crude, bold, colour-schemes below, that looked best at night. But in their malignant splendour, the orchids were the thing. Mrs. Abanathy, Ronald Firbank (adingy lilac blossom of rarity untold), Prince Palairet, a heavy blue-spotted flower, and rosy Olive Moonlight, were those that claimed the greatest respect from a few discerning connoisseurs.
“Prancing Nigger, you got a chalk mark on your ‘West-End.’ Come heah, sah, an’ let me brush it.”
Hopeful of glimpsing Vittorio, Miami and Edna sauntered on. With arms loosely entwined about each other’s hips, they made, in their complete insouciance, a conspicuous couple.
“I’d give sumpin’ to see de bedrooms, man, ’cos dair are chapels, an’ barf-rooms, besides odder conveniences off dem,” Edna related, returning a virulent glance from Miss Eurydice Edwards, with a contemptuous, pitying smile.
Traversing a throng, sampling sorbets, and ices, the sisters strolled out upon the lawn.
The big silver stars, how clear they shone—infinitudes, infinitudes.
“Adieu, hydrangeas, adieu, blue, burning South!”
The concert, it seemed, had begun.
“Come chillens, come!”
In the vast drawing-room, the first novelty of the evening—an aria fromSumaïa—had stilled all chatter. Deep-sweet, poignant, the singer’s voice was conjuring Sumaïa’s farewell to the Greek isle of Mitylene, bidding farewell to its gracious women, and to the trees of white, or turquoise, in the gardens of Lesbos.
“Adieu, hydrangeas—”
Hardly a suitable moment, perhaps, to dispute a chair! But neither the Duchess of Wellclose or Mrs. Mouth were creatures easily abashed.
“I pay, an’ I mean to hab it.”
“You can’t; it’s taken!” the duchess returned, nodding meaningly towards the buffet, where the duke could be seen swizzling whisky at the back of the bar.
“Sh’o! Dese white women seem to t’ink dey can hab ebberyt’ing.”
“Taken,” the duchess repeated, who disliked what she called theparfum d’Afriqueof the “sooties,” and as though tointimidate Mrs. Mouth, she gave her a look that would have made many a Peeress in London quail.
Nevertheless in the stir that followed the song, chairs were forthcoming.
“From de complexion dat female hab, she look as doh she bin boiling bananas!” Mrs. Mouth commented comfortably, loud enough for the duchess to hear.
“Such a large congregation should su’tinly assist de fund!” Mr. Mouth resourcefully said, envisaging with interest the audience; it was not every day that one could feast the gaze on the noble baldness of the Archbishop, or on the subtlesilhouetteof Miss Maxine Bush, swathed like an idol in an Egyptian tissue woven with magical eyes.
“De woman in de window dah,” Mrs. Mouth remarked, indicating a dowager who had the hard, but resigned look of the Mother of six daughters, in immediate succession. “Hab a look, Prancing Nigger, ob your favourite statesman.”
“De immortal Wilberforce!”
“I s’poge it’s de whiskers,” Mrs. Mouth replied, ruffling gently her “Borgia” sleeves for the benefit of the Archbishop. Rumour had it he was fond of negresses, and that the black private secretary he employed was his own natural son, while some suspected indeed a less natural connexion.
But Madame Hatso (of Blue Brazil, the Argentine; those nights in Venezuela and Buenos Ayres, “bis” and “bravas”! How the public had roared) was curtseying right and left, and glancing round to address her daughters, Mrs. Mouth perceived with vexation that Edna had vanished.
In the garden he caught her to him: “Flower of the Sugar cane!”
“Misteh Ruiz....”
“Exquisite kid.”
“I saw you thu de window-glass all de time, an’ dair was I! laughing so silent-ly....”
“My little honey.”
“... no; ’cos ob de nabehs,” she fluted,drawing him beneath the great flamboyants that stood like temples of darkness all around.
“Sweetheart.”
“I ’clar to grashis!” she delightedly crooned as he gathered her up in his arms.
“My little Edna...?...?...?”
“Where you goin’ wid me to?”
“There,” and he nodded towards the white sea sand.
A yawning butler, an insolent footman, a snoring coachman, a drooping horse....
The last conveyance had driven away, and only a party of “b—d—y niggers,” supposed to be waiting for their daughter, was keeping the domestics from their beds.
Ernest, the bepowdered footman, believed them to be thieves, and could have sworn he saw a tablespoon in the old coon’s pocket.
Hardly able to restrain his tears, Mr. Mouth sat gazing vacuously at the floor.
“Wha’ can keep de chile?... Oh Lord ... I hope dair noddin’ wrong.”
“On such a lovely ebenin’ what is time!” Mrs. Mouth exclaimed, taking up an attitude of night-enchantment by the open door.
A remark that caused Butler, and subordinate, to cough.
“It not often I see de cosmos look so special!”
“Ef she not heah soon, we better go widout her,” Miami murmured, who was examining the visitors’ cards on the hall table undismayed by the eye of Ernest.
“It’s odd she should so procrastinate; but la jeunesse, c’est le temps ou l’on s’amuse,” Mrs. Mouth blandly declared, seating herself tranquilly by her husband’s side.
“Dair noddin’, I hope, de matteh....”
“Eh, suz, my deah! Eh, suz.” Reassuringly, she tapped his arm.
“Sir Victor Virtue, Lady Bird, Princess Altamisal,” Miami tossed their cards.
“Sh’o it was a charming ebenin’! Doh I was sorry for de duchess, wid de duke, an’ he all nasty drunk wid spirits.”
“I s’poge she use to it.”
“It was a perfect skangle! Howebber, on de whole, it was quite an enjoyable pahty—doh dat music ob Wagner, it gib me de retches.”
“It bore me, too,” Miami confessed, as a couple of underfootmen made their appearance, and joining their fidgeting colleagues by the door, waited for the last guests to depart, in a mocking, whispering group.
“Ef she not here bery soon,” Miami murmured, vexed by the servants’ impertinent smiles.
“Sh’o, she be here directly,” Mrs. Mouth returned, appraising through her fan-sticks the footmen’s calves.
“It daybreak already!” Miami yawned, moved to elfish mirth by the over-emphasis, of rouge on her mother’s round cheeks.
But under the domestics’ mocking stare, their talk at length was chilled to silence.