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Pleydon's rooms were directly off Central Park West, in an apartment house obviously designed for prosperous creative arts, with a hall frescoed in the tones of Puvis de Chavannes and an elevator cage beautifully patterned in iron grilling. Dodge Pleydon met them in his narrow entry and conducted them into a pleasant reception-room.
Pleydon again had lost all consciousness of their presence; he stood, hands in pockets, his left foot slightly advanced, looking at his work from under drawn brows. Arnaud spoke first: "It's impertinent to congratulate you, Pleydon. You know what you've done better than any one else could. You have all our admiration."
Lunch was announced, a small ceremony of covered silver dishes, heavy crystal, Nankin china, and flowers. The linen, which was old, bore a monogram unfamiliar to her that of Dodge's mother, probably. When she had finished, but was still lingering at the narrow refectory table, she heard Pleydon enter the hall and the explanatory voice of the servant.
Soon she would be forty. The conviction seized her that most lives reflected hers in that their questioning was never answered. The fortunate, then, were the incurious and the hearts undisturbed by a maddening thrill. She said aloud, "The ones who never heard music." Pleydon was without a sign that she had spoken. Her emotions were very delicate, very fragile, and enormously difficult to perceive.
She had been impressed by the necessity for planning with care; but, in the cool gloom of the covered bed, a sharp joy held her at the possibility of flinging caution away. Yet she couldn't quite, no matter how much she desired it, lose herself. Linda was glad that Pleydon was rich; and there were, she remembered, moments for surrender.
He said little, but remained for a long while spread over the divan and watching her in a formal chair discontentedly. He rose suddenly and stood above her, a domineering bulk obliterating nearly everything else. In response to his demand she said, pale and composed, that she was not "reasonable"; she omitted the "yet" included in his question. Pleydon frowned.
She repressed a shudder at the thought of being, through the long nights of his restlessness and wandering voice, alone with Pleydon. She hadn't, Linda discovered, any of the transmuting feeling for him which alone made surrender possible. She calculated mentally how long it would take her to reach the station, what train would be available.
Then she wondered if she'd see Pleydon again. The Russian singer had been too silly for words. It suddenly occurred to her that the man now with her had taken Susanna Noda, and that he had left her planted. He had preferred driving her, Linda Condon, home. He wasn't very enthusiastic about it, though; his face was gloomy.
"There's Pleydon, the sculptor," the youth told her animatedly. "I've seen him at the exhibitions. It must be Susanna Noda, the Russian singer, with him. He's a tremendous swell." Linda watched Pleydon as he met Markue in the middle of the room. He was dressed carelessly, improperly for the evening; but she forgave that as the result of indifference.
Yet Arnaud had had over twenty years of her life, the best; and she had never deceived him about the quality of her gift. It was right, now, for Dodge to have the remainder. But whether it were right or wrong, there was no failure of her determination to go to Pleydon in the vindication of her existence. She delayed speaking to Arnaud until, suddenly, breakfast was over.
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