"Oh, she doesn't smoke," Lucy said protectively.
"Thank you, I believe I will," Vida contradicted to indicate she was not a bumpkin and to reprimand them both, Lucy for describing her as a writer, and Figente for dismissing the possibility.
Except for random observations Lucy made when chatting and which Vida always had admired and accepted as evidence of enviable perception, it now struck her that Lucy never was interested in relaying descriptions of persons or places. It suddenly seemed to her that what she had thought to be glimpses of Lucy's life were rather Lucy talking to Lucy, her reflections out loud concerning people, events, and places kept secret. Now she recognized that certain of Lucy's reflections had reference to conversations with Figente, or Peggy Watson, or someone named Lyle Bigelow, or people in the show. You had to listen to Lucy's reactions to figure out what had happened to cause them.
Vida stared at the tobacco wall far opposite on which were hung, subtly spotlighted and framed in narrow black, paintings she recognized as the angular black outlines or amoebic forms of Picasso and a zig-zagged maze of greys and ochres which might also be Picasso or was it Braque? Spellbound by proximity to today's great, hitherto met only in book or magazine reproductions, her awe became embarrassment as she observed a water spurt burbling into a square pool where writhed in lines drawn on turquoise tiles mythological animals in erotic union. Overhead giant dark leaves crawled along a sunset skylight. To establish herself more firmly she shifted her feet on the oriental rug and felt it slip on the polished marble. Disconcerted and seeking an ashtray, she reached to a long table at her side. The golden dish upheld by a male hand was the Venus breast and she dared not use it. Beyond it in a pool of light cast down by a Chinese vase-lamp a helmeted bronze horseman galloped. Greek? A jewel-encrusted box and then a shallow ebony bowl heaped with magnified known or unknown fruits, or were the latter vegetables or buds? Gauguin would have known. Gravely observing these strange fruits was a black figure with an impassive face on a stunted body which thrust forth an appendage. Were men like that when? She looked quickly away over her shoulder. A white elongated curved teardrop was a bird about to soar. Brancusi seen in a book at Brentano's. Suddenly she saw what the artist meant and intended her to see and became calm.
The butler came with a laden tray and she tried not to stare at the first massive silver tea service she had seen. In Congress people
