Titan / Титан. Книга для чтения на английском языке

The afternoon costumes of the women, ranging through autumnal grays, purples, browns, and greens, blended effectively with the brown-tinted walls of the entry-hall, the deep gray and gold of the general living-room, the old-Roman red of the dining-room, the white-and-gold of the music-room, and the neutral sepia of the art-gallery.

Aileen, backed by the courageous presence of Cowperwood, who, in the dining-room, the library, and the art-gallery, was holding a private levee of men, stood up in her vain beauty, a thing to see – almost to weep over, embodying the vanity of all seeming things, the mockery of having and yet not having.

This parading throng that was more curious than interested, more jealous than sympathetic, more critical than kind, was coming almost solely to observe.

“Do you know, Mrs. Cowperwood,” Mrs. Simms remarked, lightly, “your house reminds me of an art exhibit to-day. I hardly know why.”

Aileen, who caught the implied slur, had no clever words wherewith to reply.

She was not gifted in that way, but she flared with resentment.

“Do you think so?” she replied, caustically.

Mrs. Simms, not all dissatisfied with the effect she had produced, passed on with a gay air, attended by a young artist who followed amorously in her train.

Aileen saw from this and other things like it how little she was really “in.” The exclusive set did not take either her or Cowperwood seriously as yet. She almost hated the comparatively dull Mrs. Israels, who had been standing beside her at the time, and who had heard the remark; and yet Mrs.

Israels was much better than nothing. Mrs. Simms had condescended a mild “how’d do” to the latter.

It was in vain that the Addisons, Sledds, Kingslands, Hoecksemas, and others made their appearance; Aileen was not reassured. However, after dinner the younger set, influenced by McKibben, came to dance, and Aileen was at her best in spite of her doubts. She was gay, bold, attractive. Kent McKibben, a past master in the mazes and mysteries of the grand march, had the pleasure of leading her in that airy, fairy procession, followed by Cowperwood, who gave his arm to Mrs.

Simms. Aileen, in white satin with a touch of silver here and there and necklet, bracelet, ear-rings, and hair-ornament of diamonds, glittered in almost an exotic way. She was positively radiant. McKibben, almost smitten, was most attentive.

“This is such a pleasure,” he whispered, intimately.