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The Country Club dances, principally made up of people who had known each other long and intimately, decidedly needed an impetus; society was rather dreadful without rum. Anette was an attractive girl; she had beautiful legs; but they were hardly better than Fanny's; why in the name of God was he captivated by Anette's casual ankles and indifferent to his wife's?
But you can dance, and with Peyton it's a little like rushing down a football field. There! Shall we drop the encore and go outside? My wrap is on a chair in the corner." "I don't go to parties," she explained; "I am only here on Anette's account.
Women's legs they were even no longer hidden were only a reasonable anatomical provision exactly shared by men. Why, he particularized, did he prefer them in silk stockings rather than bare, and in black more than bright colors? Anette's had never failed to excite his imagination, but Alice Lucian's, graceful enough, were without interest for him. How stupid was the spectacle of women in tights!
But in Fanny there was, he recognized, that fierce if narrow singleness of impulse, of purity. His thoughts of other women were not innocent of provocative conjecture Anette's sinuous body, now as dead to him as Alohabad, recurred to his mind but in this Fanny was utterly loyal. Yes, she had, a thing impossible for any man he had known, a mental singleness of desire.
"You," he replied experimentally. "I like her; experience has brought her some wisdom; and she knows men, too." "God knows she ought to," Anette's face was close to his, and he caught the flash of malice in her eyes. Conscious of the flavor of an acceptable flattery he didn't let this disturb him. "What a marvelous dance," she proceeded; "there must be twenty men over.
What a lovely dress of Anette's; it must be the one she's been talking about so much, that Miss Zillinger made; really good for Eastlake. What was that man's name who was in the navy, and did you notice his rank? The officers of the navy are a lot better looking than army men. And Mina Raff, after all did you find her interesting?" "Quite. She struck me as very intelligent."
What did she tell you at the Plaza?" "The same thing," Peyton replied moodily. "I only saw her for a scrappy dinner; she couldn't even wait for coffee, but rushed up to a conference with her director." They were, Lee knew, talking about Mina Raff, a friend of Anette's earlier summers by the sea who was beginning to be highly successful in the more serious moving pictures.
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