Free Twilight Sleep by Edith Wharton Page B

stopped to gaze?
    Ardwin came up to Nona. "Oh, no," Heuston protested under his
breath. "I wanted—"
    "There's Aggie signalling."
    The girl's arm was already on Ardwin's shoulder. As they circled
toward the middle of the room, Nona said: "You show off Lita's
dancing marvellously."
    He replied, in his high–pitched confident voice: "Oh, it's only a
question of giving her her head and not butting in. She and I each
have our own line of self–expression: it would be stupid to mix
them. If only I could get her to dance just once for Serge
Klawhammer; he's scouring the globe to find somebody to do the new
'Herodias' they're going to turn at Hollywood. People are fed up
with the odalisque style, and with my help Lita could evolve
something different. She's half promised to come round to my place
tonight after supper and see Klawhammer. Just six or seven of the
enlightened—wonder if you'd join us? He's tearing back to
Hollywood tomorrow."
    "Is Lita really coming?"
    "Well, she said yes and no, and ended on yes."
    "All right—I will." Nona hated Ardwin, his sleekness, suppleness,
assurance, the group he ruled, the fashions he set, the doctrines
he professed—hated them so passionately and undiscerningly that it
seemed to her that at last she had her hand on her clue. That was
it, of course! Ardwin and his crew were trying to persuade Lita to
go into the movies; that accounted for her restlessness and
irritability, her growing distaste for her humdrum life. Nona drew
a breath of relief. After all, if it were only that—!
    The dance over, she freed herself and slipped through the throng in
quest of Jim. Should she ask him to take her to Ardwin's? No:
simply tell him that she and Lita were off for a final spin at the
decorator's studio, where there would be more room and less fuss
than at Pauline's. Jim would laugh and approve, provided she and
Lita went together; no use saying anything about Klawhammer and his
absurd "Herodias."
    "Jim? But, my dear, Jim went home long ago. I don't blame the
poor boy," Mrs. Manford sighed, waylaid by her daughter, "because I
know he has to be at the office so early; and it must be awfully
boring, standing about all night and not dancing. But, darling,
you must really help me to find your father. Supper's ready, and I
can't imagine…"
    The Marchesa's ferret face slipped between them as she trotted by
on Mr. Toy's commodious arm.
    "Dear Dexter? I saw him not five minutes ago, seeing off that
wonderful Lita—"
    "Lita? Lita gone too?" Nona watched the struggle between her
mother's disciplined features and twitching nerves. "What
impossible children I have!" A smile triumphed over her
discomfiture. "I do hope there's nothing wrong with the baby?
Nona, slip down and tell your father he must come up. Oh, Stanley,
dear, all my men seem to have deserted me. Do find Mrs. Toy and
take her in to supper…"
    In the hall below there was no Dexter. Nona cast about a glance
for Powder, the pale resigned butler, who had followed Mrs. Manford
through all her vicissitudes and triumphs, seemingly concerned
about nothing but the condition of his plate and the discipline of
his footmen. Powder knew everything, and had an answer to
everything; but he was engaged at the moment in the vast operation
of making terrapin and champagne appear simultaneously on eighty–
five small tables, and was not to be found in the hall. Nona ran
her eye along the line of footmen behind the piled–up furs, found
one who belonged to the house, and heard that Mr. Manford had left
a few minutes earlier. His motor had been waiting for him, and was
now gone. Mrs. James Wyant was with him, the man thought. "He's
taken her to Ardwin's, of course. Poor father! After an evening
of Mrs. Toy and Amalasuntha—who can wonder? If only mother would
see how her big parties bore him!" But Nona's mother would never
see that.
    "It's just my indestructible faith in my own genius—nothing else,"
Ardwin was proclaiming in his jumpy falsetto as Nona