Mary Heaton Vorse

“ Alone by itself it had always seemed full of color and to speak of life, but now of a sudden it had grown dim and gray and sad—an inconspicuous background for a riotous pageant. Yet all the various animosities and jealous rivalries were strangely on the surface, as though they might be tossed ruinously to the surface at any moment.
Crystal, absorbed in the details of the masque, Midsummer Madness, had left the guests to Virginia, and as the evening went on they gave her the effect as though they were all rushing on to some inevitable shipwreck. What it was she feared she could not tell. ”

“ Virginia asked her. "How do you like it yourself, Mrs. Pollock?"
The old lady clasped her hands together. "It's beautiful, Miss Vane. The months I lived here alone, and the years that they were so feeble and, do the best I could, neglect gaining on the house all the time, it seemed to me as if the light had gone out of it, as much as it could out of a house like this—a house that has a heart of gold. Now it's all lit again. It's a very sad thing. Miss Vane, to watch the light of life burning dimmer and dimmer in those you love. ”

“ There came to Godfrey a clear vision of Crystal's invasion of the house—of her trail over it, until there remained only a shell of itself. He couldn't bear it. When he had spoken so wistfully of wanting to be alone there, he had wanted Thorn House to possess Crystal, and now she had told him that she intended to possess it. He wanted to cry out, "You're trying to kill Thorn House; you're trying to kill beauty and reality and dignity," but he only said, quietly: "I don't think I'll have those pictures moved." ”

“ Then Crystal said, slowly: "This house has been silent and empty too long. We've been for two days like people living in a haunted place. It needs life and noise and gaiety and new things. It needs to be made hospitable once more. As it is, we can't talk here. Things are as dull as a cemetery. I'm going to have people and people. I'm going to begin with an impromptu flower fête to-morrow, and have people from everywhere and then more parties and more and more, and end with a great masquerade. ”

“ It's stripped us bare of our little agreeable fripperies of the spirit and has shown us to one another as we are. In the silence that comes over us we are mirrored partly to one another; we see ourselves, and so we hate ourselves and are one another's enemies. Without our little social make-up we're all of us one another's enemies."
At Virginia's passionate gesture of dissent:
"All of us," he repeated, "Crystal and myself most of all. We haven't one common meeting-place with which to make a life together. ”

“ There was a second silence, and then Mitzi, her face white with anger, her small fist clenched, cried to Paul Geer:
"You—you!"
The social surface without which society cannot exist was rent. Paul, with the insolence of a certain type of man toward a woman whom he considers deeply his inferior, rose from the piano and lounged away.
Mitzi's anger dissolved into stormy tears. In a moment Crystal had her arm around Mitzi's neck, comforting her. ”

“ The sound of her voice in this strange quiet was like a sudden shot. Every one jumped. Mitzi burst out laughing. Then they all laughed, and their laughter was worse than their silence, for it had neither gaiety nor relief, and it held the madness of hysteria. Each one began talking eagerly to his neighbor, and by common consent they ignored the uncomfortable enchantment that had held them.
After dinner Carrington, Godfrey, and Virginia sat together at one end of the music-room, away from the others. ”

“ Pollock watched them in stupefied amazement, and Virginia, with Carrington's arm around her, crushed herself into a corner to escape the stampede.
Then Crystal, pale as her own white costume behind her make-up, ran in. "Virginia," she cried, "what can I do? What can I do? Godfrey's left! He's gone for good. And I—I accused him of caring more for Thorn House and you than for me. I don't know what I did—I went mad for a moment; we're all mad to-night. I told him I wanted you to go, and to send away that walking conscience, Mrs. Pollock. ”

“ He buried his face in his hands. In his moment of madness he had made her position in his household an intolerable one; and Virginia, instead of blaming him, looked at him with complete and pitiful understanding.
Outside there was a pause before the masque. At either side of the staircase were groups of half-naked girls, bacchantes and dryads, awaiting their signal to begin. Suddenly the lights were turned low; Crystal, Mitzi, and Amy Nicholls stood before the audience dressed like three glittering birds—three white peacocks amid the color about them. ”

“ This is your house! It loves you. When I come through these quiet rooms and see you sitting writing, it is as though you were inclosed in peace. The place is only empty and meaningless when they're all here. ”

“ Mitzi had sat down at a piano and lifted her light, birdlike voice.
"Good heavens!" cried Crystal, "Mitzi can't enter a house without seeing what its acoustic properties are."
"I told you," Mitzi fluted back at her, her sleek, black head on one side, "that I must work here if I came—just a little."
Another motor-load streamed in.
"I'm not going to stay to say 'How do you do?' to every one. Why should I?" Crystal asked Godfrey. "You and Virginia do it. Poor Crystal's got to have a bath. There are queer people who'll want tea first." ”

“ It was as though they were in the company of people who, without judging them, forced them to measure themselves by some higher standard from which they fell short. Conversation became difficult, and as it died down the animosities that had been let loose the evening before came trooping back. One could almost see the ugly horde of them lying in wait, ready to destroy the hardly won but fragile compromise which they had effected. ”

“ At last Carrington spoke:
"We've become friends overnight, and all the others have become enemies."
"What happened to us all last night?" Virginia asked him.
"I know what happened to me," he answered. "In that strange silence I saw you for the first time. Maybe that happened to them, too. Maybe they all saw one another, too, and couldn't bear what they saw."
During the day every one tried to atone for the night before. Toward sundown the terrace became animated; fast motors deposited guests from other great houses in the neighborhood. ”