“Good evening, Mr. Barnes — Good evening, Miss Dacey — Good evening, Mrs. Faubion — Good evening, father.”
“All right for you, Mr. Demarest!” Mrs. Faubion, mournful and reproachful, mock angry.
“For me? What have I done?”
He dived, laughing into the somber eyes, which darkened maliciously to receive him … Swimming. I swim, you swim, he or she swims. We swim, you swim — the rich sardonic mouth tearing bread.
“Oh, I know what you’ve done. And you know too.”
“Cross my heart and hope I die … Not guilty. I appeal.”
She cut her meat savagely. Roast beef au jus, underdone, in watery gules. Green and celluloid cabbage. Barnes was drinking black stout. Jingle, went Daisy’s bangle.
“The little girl’s in a bad temper, tonight,” said Smith, lowering his voice. “I wouldn’t let her have the dress she wanted …” Then louder—“Who’s your dressmaker, Madam?”
“You be careful!”
“Careful! Reckless is my middle name.”
“Water, Miss Dacey?”
“Oo thank you, Mr. Barnes.” Titter, titter.
“Walking right by me like that!”
“Never!”
“You did! On the deck this afternoon. And I was alone.”
“You don’t ask me to believe that, do you? Alone!”
“Where was Australia?” said Smith. “How come?”
“I’m not talking to you, Mr. Smith. I’m talking to your son.”
“Oh!.. God.”
“Sixpenny fine, Mr. Smith. Swearing at meals.” Mr. Barnes serenely peeped over the tilted stout.
Da dee die dum—die dum: die dee. — Anita looked over the silver-spangled white fan, long-leggedly, gracefully gliding, the green irises of her eyes irregularly flecked, gold-flecked, the pupils dark and — witty. “I thought you were afraid of dances!.. I believe it’s all a pretense!” … That lesson in the dining room. “You don’t hold me tightly enough — that’s the trouble!” And the peal of laughter, bubbling, inbreathing. Her Empire gown — high-waisted, white, like the Empress what’s-her-name, standing at the top of the stairs — stairs of alabaster. Sorosis; Sesostris. “But she’s nervous—very highly strung,” Anita’s mother had said. “Ever since her operation” … Well, what of it? Why did she eye him (knitting) so meaningfully? Ah—! she had meant to warn him off. Die dum—die dee … Da dee die dum—Faubion was looking at him rather hard — but as if she were not quite focusing her attention — no, she was beginning to smile, but obviously the sort of smile which is an answer to a smile — it must be for someone behind him. He turned his head — it was Australia, the Romantic Young Man, who was now in the act of passing the water bottle. A well-dressed, vapid young man with a high collar and a high color; he was a little too self-conscious, elaborately polite, a shade too much of the traveling salesman’s genuflectory manner. “Swipey — I don’t like this cat — he’s too swipey.” O God that word — how fond of it Aunt Maud had been, and how terribly her choice of it lighted that part of her vulgarity which he had always hated. There must be the same stratum buried somewhere in himself, of course — or his disgust would not have been so intemperate. Where had he got it? No — he was damned if he had it! It must have been a natural dislike — that element in Aunt Maud’s sensibility (or lack of it) had done him a violence from the beginning. What could so have poisoned her? Her mind, her character, her outlook blackly poisoned — a savage coprophily, a necessity for dwelling on the foulness of things. Well — he did this himself! but not surely in the same unclean way. Aunt Maud’s perceptions were somehow septic. A septic sceptic. Himself, an aseptic sceptic. Tut tut … This was probably completely wrong. More likely it was simply Aunt Maud’s lack of sensibility — a failure to perceive things clearly, to make fine distinctions? A bitter and unbridled woman.
“Penny for your thoughts,” said Faubion.
“The fleshpots of Egypt,” said Demarest swiftly. Why? Faubion = fleshpot.
“What!..”
Smith shook sadly his close-cropped gray head.
“Eating this dinner, he thinks of fleshpots!.. No. Give me a Creole chicken dinner. Okra soup.”
“Would to God we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, where we sat by the fleshpots … For we, alas, the Fleshpots love … Man cannot live by bread alone.”
“Shame!” cried Fleshpot. A flaming shame.
“It’s all the Bible I know.”
“Did you go to church this morning?” A finger uplifted, schoolteacherly.
“Certainly not. I played bridge.”
“Bridge! Oo aren’t we swell,” Daisy derisively caroled.
“He’s got too much brains,” said Smith. “He plays chess, too … But I beat him at drafts just the same, didn’t I?”
“You did.”
“Got to hand it to the old man!.. Chess is an old lady’s game. I don’t like chess. Let the old ladies play it. But I’ll beat you at checkers any time. Yes, sir, I’m all right at checkers.”
“And what do you play, Mr. Barnes?” Daisy Dacey wriggled, jingled, slanted her long white face, and wide blue eyes, leaning against the tablecloth with phthisic breast. Mr. Barnes, tolerant, slow-smiling, with slow-burning eyes of amusement, looked down at the proffered head. Herod and Salome.
“Golf,” he said.
Daisy was disconcerted. Golf! What the devil was golf? She smiled a weak smile, too elastic, and looked sadly forgetful — Ophelia straying by the stream. Let me Ophelia pulse! There’s rosemary — that’s for remembrance. Wan, and oh so wistful. Weak, and oh so helpless. But no pansies — ah no: for never a thought had she. Straying with little white feet among the lilies. Oh, pity me, a shopworn Ophelia! Come and find me where I wander at twilight, sadly singing, or perchance weeping, among the cowslips! Put your strong arm around me, and hold me, hold me! Don’t let me remember — O God, don’t let me remember!.. When I was thirteen. It was dreadful!.. and I trusted him … Have you read the Rosary?… Where the cowslips, there slip I.