The Washington times., 1931-05-18


being set up in a pergola.
When the first guests ar
rived, Leslie Edgerton, in a
bouffant white gown with wired
pannierS and tumbler in one
hand, was still in the act of
trying to convey to a gardener
her idea of how a small red
bulb should dangle from the
pointed left ear of marble
faun.
It was true that every few
moments her rather pretty
heart-shaped face twitched as
if her nervousness were a
prankish jack-in-the-box. The
small red electric bulb refused
to dangle from the left ear of
the marble faun. She graSped
it from the servant, and, leap
ing to a stone bench, began to
adjust it herself.
She was in that position
when Jennifer and Berry and
a smattering of early guests ap-
peared on the wide marble
staircase. At sight of them,
she swung herself by the neck
of the faun, legs out in a rigid
horizontal, and began kissing
him against his chilly lips.
It started out as that kind
of party.
Out of the Swim
The way, Jennifer had long
since decided, to feel at ease
at what she called these closed
corporation functions, was to
pretend to be as intimately a
part of them as everyone else
was, or pretended to be.
A sense of not belonging; of
not knowing these people on
the easy informal basis they
knew one another, aSsailed her,
and seemed to lock her tonsils
and stiffen her heart on those
occasions when she penetrated
into the social fastneSs Of the
gayer, if less conservative, ele-
mentS of these safely in
trenched families.
Their intimate talk that took
so much for granted. High
bandying of Christian names
where she was addressed as
Miss Rarick. References to
past functions to which she
had not been hidden, and to
future ones to which she would
not be hidden.
Not that she was not very
much part of these scenes. The
Edgertons moved in swift, news
paper-hcadline sets. But even
here she was consciously Miss
Rarick. The way to keep a
stiff upper lip when you were
ill at ease and inwardly fright
ened was to see to it that you
were conSpicuouSly Miss Rarick.
You listened, when the two on
either side of you at dinner
leaned across you to indulge in
familiar discussion of an i'm
portant social function to
which you had mySteriouSly
and damnably not been hidden.
with a smile as bright as plat
mum drawn across your face.
You let them make up party
around you to go off cruising
in warm waters on the yacht
of the father of a boy who had
just kissed the back of your
neck, and laughed at some sally
about the Delaware Gap and
the Delaware Yawn, as if you
< were not singing at the omis-
sion.
Loud Laughter
The lively Miss Rarick was
loud in her laughter. That was
part of the stiff upper lip. She
was daring in her dress, but i'm
peccably so, never errlng beyond
the bonds of chic. A good fel
low up to a point, and that
point, as she was fond of put
ting it, an exclamation point.
When Jennifer walked down
the wide staircase of the Edger-
tons famed blue terrace, with
Berry at her right and a one
armed chap named Roger Madi-
son, descendant of a President,
at her left, her heart was in, her
mouth; inSolence in her smile,
and a burning humiliation be-.
fore Berry. beating about in
her.
Perhaps he had never realized
she was not spoofing. He had,
though! He had. He had. He
had jumped like a sprung trap
when she had come out with it.
Perhaps he had thought her a
little spifflicated. God make
him think was tight! No. no,
no. he wouldn't. They had not
even stopped for cocktails before
! they drove off. There came