tcher, the
baker, the candlestickmaker, and to have them look slantingly at you,
that was disgusting. But to be beholden for a gift, which you had
refused to accept, and which then, behind your back, was dumped in on
you, that was degrading. Consequently, while conjecturing new versions
of Perrault, versions which it relieved her to find were not wanted, she
gnashed her milk-white teeth at Lennox, felt that she hated him, yet
felt, too, and the feeling was maddening, that the hatred was very
tender.

All this was irritating enough and the Tamburini had contrived to add to
the irritation. It had been arranged that the fallen star was to come to
the walk-up and accompany Cassy to the Splendor. Instead of which, at
the last moment, the ex-diva had telephoned that she would join her at
the hotel, and Cassy foresaw a tedious sitting about in the lobby, for
Ma Tamby was always late. But when have misfortunes come singly? Cassy
foresaw, too, that the tedium would not be attenuated by Paliser's
conversation.

It was not for that, or for him, that she was then in the subway, but
for dinner. Young, healthy and consequently carnal, though not otherwise
carnal than hunger can make you, she liked food, on condition that she
had not prepared it, and--in particular, and why not?--she liked the
savorously truffled menus that walk-ups lack. She had another reason for
being in the subway, one that Ma Tamby had lodged, like a flea, in her
ear.

But now, near the heart of Manhattan, the train had stopped. Cassy got
out, looked at her white gloves, wondered if they smelled of benzine,
decided that they did, took them off and went on to the Splendor where
Paliser was waiting.

Other people appeared to be similarly occupied. In the high, wide hall
were groups of careful men and careless women, the latter very
scrumptious in their imported frocks. The sight of these Parisianisms
abashed Cassy no more than her appearance abashed Paliser. Etiquette,
Formality, the Proper Thing, the great inane gods of the ante-bellum
heavens, he had never acknowledged and now, though locally their altars
remained and their worship persisted, he knew they were forever dead,
blown into the dust-bin of the things that were, tossed there in
derision by that atheist, the War.

The careless women looked at Cassy and carefully looked away. The
careful men looked at her and carelessly looked again. In the severity
of the wide, high hall, the girl with her rebelli