“I call myself Mrs. Herf now, Cassie.”
“Oh I beg your pardon, it’s so hard to keep twack. … They’re just in time. … Hester’s going to dance an owiental dance called Wythms from the Awabian Nights. … Oh it’s too beautiful.”
When Ellen came out of the bedroom where she had left her wraps a tall figure in Egyptian headdress with crooked rusty eyebrows accosted her. “Allow me to salute Helena Herf, distinguished editress of Manners, the journal that brings the Ritz to the humblest fireside … isnt that true?”
“Jojo you’re a horrible tease. … I’m awfully glad to see you.”
“Let’s go and sit in a corner and talk, oh only woman I have ever loved …”
“Yes do let’s … I dont like it here much.”
“And my dear, have you heard about Tony Hunter’s being straightened out by a psychoanalyst and now he’s all sublimated and has gone on the vaudeville stage with a woman named California Jones.”
“You’d better watch out Jojo.”
They sat down on a couch in a recess between the dormer windows. Out of the corner of her eye she could see a girl dancing in green silk veils. The phonograph was playing the Cesar Franck symphony.
“We mustnt miss Cassie’s daunce. The poor girl would be dreadfully offended.”
“Jojo tell me about yourself, how have you been?”
He shook his head and made a broad gesture with his draped arm. “Ah let us sit upon the ground and tell sad stories of the deaths of kings.”
“Oh Jojo I’m sick of this sort of thing. … It’s all so silly and dowdy. … I wish I hadnt let them make me take my hat off.”
“That was so that I should look upon the forbidden forests of your hair.”
“Oh Jojo do be sensible.”
“How’s your husband, Elaine or rathah Helenah?”
“Oh he’s all right.”
“You dont sound terribly enthusiastic.”
“Martin’s fine though. He’s got black hair and brown eyes and his cheeks are getting to be pink. Really he’s awfully cute.”
“My deah, spare me this exhibition of maternal bliss. … You’ll be telling me next you walked in a baby parade.”
She laughed. “Jojo it’s lots of fun to see you again.”
“I havent finished my catechism yet deah. … I saw you in the oval diningroom the other day with a very distinguished looking man with sharp features and gray hair.”
“That must have been George Baldwin. Why you knew him in the old days.”
“Of course of course. How he has changed. A much more interesting looking man than he used to be I must say. … A very strange place for the wife of a bolshevik pacifist and I.W.W. agitator to be seen taking lunch, I must say.”
“Jimps isnt exactly that. I kind of wish he were. …” She wrinkled up her nose. “I’m a little fed up too with all that sort of thing.”
“I suspected it my dear.” Cassie was flitting selfconsciously by.
“Oh do come and help me. … Jojo’s teasing me terribly.”
“Well I’ll twy to sit down just for a second, I’m going to dance next. … Mr. Oglethorpe’s going to wead his twanslation of the songs of Bilitis for me to dance to.”
Ellen looked from one to the other; Oglethorpe crooked his eyebrows and nodded.
Then Ellen sat alone for a long while looking at the dancing and the chittering crowded room through a dim haze of boredom.
The record on the phonograph was Turkish. Hester Voorhees, a skinny woman with a mop of hennaed hair cut short at the level of her ears, came out holding a pot of drawling incense out in front of her preceded by two young men who unrolled a carpet as she came. She wore silk bloomers and a clinking metal girdle and brassieres. Everybody was clapping and saying, “How wonderful, how marvelous,” when from another room came three tearing shrieks of a woman. Everybody jumped to his feet. A stout man in a derby hat appeared in the doorway. “All right little goils, right through into the back room. Men stay here.”
“Who are you anyway?”
“Never mind who I am, you do as I say.” The man’s face was red as a beet under the derby hat.
“It’s a detective.” “It’s outrageous. Let him show his badge.”
“It’s a holdup.”
“It’s a raid.”
The room had filled suddenly with detectives. They stood in front of the windows. A man in a checked cap with a face knobbed like a squash stood in front of the fireplace. They were pushing the women roughly into the back room. The men were herded in a little group near the door; detectives were taking their names. Ellen still sat on the couch. “… complaint phoned to headquarters,” she heard somebody say. Then she noticed that there was a phone on the little table beside the couch where she sat. She picked it up and whispered softly for a number.
“Hello is this the district attorney’s office? … I want to speak to Mr. Baldwin please. … George. … It’s lucky I knew where you were. Is the district attorney there? That’s fine … no you tell him about it. There has been a horrible mistake. I’m at Hester Voorhees’; you know she has a dancing studio. She was presenting some dances to some friends and through some mistake the police are raiding the place …”
The man in the derby was standing over her. “All right phoning wont do no good. … Go ’long in the other room.”
“I’ve got the district attorney’s office on the wire. You speak to him. … Hello is this Mr. Winthrop? … Yes O … How do you do? Will you please speak to this man?” She handed the telephone to the detective and walked out into the center of the room. My I wish I hadnt taken my hat off, she was thinking.
From the other room came a sound of sobbing and Hester Voorhees’ stagy voice shrieking, “It’s a horrible mistake. … I wont be insulted like this.”
The detective put down the telephone. He came over to Ellen. “I want to apologize miss. … We acted on insufficient information. I’ll withdraw my men immediately.”
“You’d better apologize to Mrs. Voorhees. … It’s her studio.”
“Well ladies and gents,” the detective began
