Chapter I

Evelyn Barron dressed rather mechanically for the evening at the Durlands’, quite as she always dressed to go to places. She chatted pleasantly with her husband as she arranged her hair. Martin Barron, as usual a little ahead of her, paused to smoke a cigarette before putting on his collar. Evelyn looked at him. She congratulated herself because he was good-looking, awfully nice, in fact. Nothing extraordinary, of course, but she had been married ten years and he was pleasant and she was used to him. He seemed nearly everything that a husband should be, and quite satisfactory when compared with most other husbands she knew.

Evelyn was thirty-five. Even as she looked at herself in the glass, and was pleased, she sighingly admitted that they were both—well—getting rather settled. She was not wrinkled or anything like that, of course, but she had gained ten pounds in the past year. She pulled viciously at a grey hair. She was glad that she was not really turning wholly grey, the way some women did.

Well, it wasn’t as if she were getting on alone. Martin was aging, too. His rather sandy hair was receding from his forehead. His skin, always slightly pink, was a bit redder now after meals. He had taken to wearing low collars, and with his newest lowest ones his flesh formed two rolls over the top. But Martin was awfully good. Evelyn knew that. He preferred a man as a private secretary and even at parties he never paid much attention to other women. A few years before Evelyn had rather hoped that he would look at other women. It would have added spice to things. Still, it was of no use to borrow trouble. Good old Martin! She liked him the way he was. He gave her everything he could afford.

Theirs had been practically a love match—that is, what usually passes for a love match. Martin had fallen in love with Evelyn, brown-haired, brown eyed and jolly and vivacious, at twenty-four. Evelyn, with no other love affair in the immediate foreground, had recognized his sterling qualities and his good business position and had fastened her rather nebulous affection upon him. She hadn’t made a mistake. She knew that. There hadn’t been any one else she had cared for since. She had settled down into comfortable domesticity, one-half of a “little married couple” in an upper-middle-class New York set. It was not especially exciting. Sometimes she longed for thrills, but she had longed for them more years before than she did now. She was pretty well satisfied with things, now, most of the time. Especially with Martin. They had quarrelled a bit, of course. About trifles. But, usually, Martin was awfully good.

To-night, even. Here he was, going to the Durlands’ without a word, and he hated that sort of thing. Yet he went because Evelyn liked to go. Of course he would spend most of his time smoking with the men. But he went, anyhow. Evelyn couldn’t go alone. In her set, though they were awfully modern about a lot of things—all of the women smoked and you could go to teas with men if you liked—it wasn’t quite the thing to go to formal parties without your husband. In any case, Evelyn couldn’t have gone without _some_ escort, and no other man had ever asked her to go any place with him.

She wondered, just for a minute, why she wanted to go to the Durlands. Whenever she and Martin were invited she always made quite a point of pretending to like it. She wondered if she really did. She always felt a bit out of things. But it was different from the affairs she usually went to. Maud Durland was a writer, the only writer Evelyn knew well. She was one of those serious writers of little things who occasionally get into some of the newer literary reviews with half a column, or write a two-inch filler for a second-rate all-fiction magazine. These, when Maud Durland wrote them, seemed to have a special significance. She talked them over with her friends and her friends spoke of them when she was not with them.

She wrote exclusively about people she knew. You could pick out whom she meant if you knew her crowd. She made no money by her writing, of course, but she felt that she was in the midst of a career. Fred Durland had some sort of a remunerative, though inartistic, position connected with the coal industry, and Maud Durland spoke of it slightingly and with a patronizing sneer, though she never encouraged Fred to neglect coal for a more artistic employment.

One or two Sundays a month Maud Durland entertained with teas in her studio. Why the Durlands had chosen a duplex studio, instead of an ordinary apartment, except that it was a better setting for tea parties, no one ever knew. But all of Maud’s artistic friends liked it. At these Sunday affairs, Maud gathered together as many kindred souls as she could find. Usually they were mostly married couples, one-half of each couple being a mild devotee of some one of the arts. Sometimes, though, couples like the Barrons were asked to fill in and appreciate. There were always a few single people, too, yearning young women in wrong colours, effeminate young men trying to remember their poses, young business men attempting, once a week, anyhow, to dip into a higher culture than their routine office work afforded them.

The Durland apartment was removed from the stigma of mere pretence by being uptown, a couple of blocks from the park. Sometimes Maud managed to get real celebrities, a man or a woman who had had things in the big magazines or who had written—and sold—a book, or verse writers who filled out the pages when fiction stories ran too short and who turned an honest penny by working part time for the advertising agencies.

Evelyn had been to a number of these parties. She liked the atmosphere, the being with people who counted. Always, on the way home or the next day, she reflected on Martin’s stolidity and wished he “did things” instead of being in the wholesale leather business. It always took several days to make her feel kindly toward him again.

Evelyn and Maud Durland had known each other about four years. While they were not chummy and found little to talk about when they were alone, they did manage to have long telephone talks. Like most women, they found more to say over the telephone than when they were face to face. Occasionally they met at luncheon or tea. Evelyn was always awfully pleased to be included in Maud Durland’s parties.

Now, her hair arranged and her face made up—Evelyn used rouge and powder, but not with any degree of cleverness—she slipped into her dress. It was rather a simple frock of dark blue Georgette crêpe, a ready-made, with conventional “smart” lines, the sort of dress hundreds of women between twenty-five and fifty were wearing. It was not an inexpensive dress, but it lacked personality and effectiveness.

Evelyn pulled Martin’s coat a bit, straightened his tie, kissed him carelessly on the cheek. She felt she was really very fond of him.

“All ready, old dear,” she said cheerfully. “And please don’t make Jeffry crawl along so. It’s late now. Other people drive faster than a mile every two hours without being arrested or having accidents.”

When they arrived at the Durlands’, the guests had assembled—were, in fact, already eating and drinking. Guests usually started on the refreshments immediately on arriving or as soon afterward as things were ready. Evelyn removed her coat in Maud Durland’s room, an exotic room, like all of Maud’s things. It was done in peacock blue and lavender enamel and was heavy with odd perfume.

Martin was waiting at the studio door, and they went into the studio together, nodding to people they knew. In fifteen minutes Martin was with a group of business husbands of artistic wives who were smoking in one corner. Soon Evelyn was listening to the usual conversation. This night there was so much talk of the punch, which was pronounced extraordinarily good, that Evelyn drank several glasses of it. She joined a group who were discussing the newer lighting for the theatre.

“You see, with this new lighting the foots are merely incidental. Get a few thousand watts and a few baby spots for a real moonlight effect—”

Then,

“Here’s the man who knows about things like that—all about the theatre—writes for the stage—wrote the lyrics for ‘Here Sat Miss Muffet’ and ‘Why Didn’t You Phone Me?’ Hey, Northrup—”

A man turned, smiled, came toward them. Evelyn gasped. He was the sort of man she liked—the sort she had fallen in love with, vaguely, whenever she fell in love, years ago, before she met Martin. She had almost forgotten that there were men of that type. It made her feel different, alert, to realize that men still looked that way. Of course, he wouldn’t notice her—men didn’t notice her any more—hadn’t ever noticed her a great deal.

His name was Franklin Northrup, she learned. She felt, in some way, as if she knew quite a lot about him. She was a bit confused as to whether lyrics meant the words or the music to songs, but she knew it was one of them. But that didn’t matter. Franklin Northrup! He was the sort that had liked her, when she was younger. Younger? Well, she wasn’t old—Northrup wasn’t so young himself—her age or older. Why, she had been asleep, had forgotten what men were! It had been years since she had really looked at a man—really noticed—

He was good-looking. He was the type she admired, always. Blonde. Martin was blonde, of course, but Martin was blonde in a heavy, red, sandy sort of way. Northrup was slender, almost thin. His hair was shining and smooth. She wanted rather to put her hand on it, to see if it felt as smooth and soft as it looked. What a foolish notion to have when you are married and thirty-five! His skin was pale, too pale, really, and he had lines around his mouth and rather deep shadows under his eyes. Those eyes were dark and sleepy-looking, not bright blue and stupid, like Martin’s. She knew that type, cynical and yet sentimental and intense. How silly to think of such things! She liked his mouth, the upper lip rather thin, the under lip quite full. His nose was a bit aquiline. She liked him awfully well.

She wished, then, that she had not worn dark blue. You can’t bring yourself out—show who you are—in dark blue. Evelyn felt suddenly that it hid her personality. A decent dark blue dress is a sort of a cloak of invisibility. Unconsciously she ran her hand through her brown hair, loosened it a trifle, pulled it a little farther over her face. She was glad she had shampooed it that morning. She was glad, too, that her eyes were brown and didn’t need any make-up. She bit her lips, moistened them, leaned forward.

The others, chatting on about stage lighting, became suddenly unimportant. Every one else became unimportant. Northrup lounged on the arm of a chair.

“This new lighting is all right, in a way,” he said; “that is, they’re making an effort. But, except in night scenes and things like that, I believe in enough light. These new birds really haven’t anything on Belasco, though they kid his realism. Half of these new artists don’t know what they’re trying to do. Take that show they put on last year—”

His voice, quite deep, drawled pleasantly. Evelyn shivered with enjoyment. He was nice. She would force him to notice her. What should she do? He knew so much about things. She leaned a trifle closer to him.

Another man came up. Evelyn barely glanced at him. He talked. Evelyn lost interest. She caught Northrup’s eye.

“Warm, isn’t it?” he asked. He rose, came up to her chair. “An awful crowd here, too.”

“You mean?”

“Oh, these groups amuse me. They talk so much of things they don’t know anything about. The theatre, for instance. You interested in stage lighting?”

“I’m one of those who don’t know anything about it,” Evelyn laughed.

“I know a little and it bores me a lot,” said Northrup. “What about a sandwich and some punch? The old girl put a big stick in it—quite like the old days, eh? Maybe she knows that is the only way she can get a crowd.”

Evelyn rose. They walked off together. Evelyn felt Northrup’s hand on her elbow. She moved a trifle closer to him. His fingers tightened around her arm.

They drank several glasses of punch, nibbled at sandwiches. Evelyn was not used to drinking.

“Wouldn’t you like to get out of this mob?” Northrup asked. “This chatter and near-music—I don’t know why I came to this place. I live on the floor below—in one of the little un-studio apartments. Maud Durland’s been worrying me for weeks to come to one of her tea fights. I didn’t know they could be as mad as this. I usually don’t go in for this sort of thing.”

Then,

“Let’s go down to my rooms and get a real drink. What say?”

“Wouldn’t it seem a bit—unusual?”

“Unusual, nothing. There’s been so many women in those rooms that the hallboy thinks it’s a girls boarding school. Honest, though, it’s better than this racket. And a real drink. We’ll just stay a minute. Oh, come on—”

“I’d love to,” said Evelyn.