"Oh, quelle horreur!" Olga commented, making a grimace as she poured the mixture into a glass with her strong white hands. Mamie was bewailing the trials of singers, whose delicate throats forbade indulgence in alcohol.
Olga, who was drinking tea, challenged this with an account of certain ladies whom she, with her own eyes, had seen so completely "zigzag" that they had to be almost carried home. Yet the very next night they would be on the job, howling their heads off as Manon or the tearful Charlotte. "You take things very seriously, Mademoiselle," she remarked. "Du reste," she added, "it's a characteristic of Americans. N'est-ce pas, Monsieur?"
Grover could only admit, with a terrible conviction, that it was.
As he walked down the hill from Hellgren's house,—Mamie had had the good grace to rush home and dress for another engagement,—Grover warned himself sadly that he must not return to it. In Hellgren's babyish eyes, in his caresses, in his pathetic efforts to render himself agreeable, in his hospitable zeal, Grover had detected an undertone of fear, a purely subconscious fear. One incident in particular had revealed it. When they had all settled into easy talk, after the afternoon light had gone, leaving the salon in shadow, Olga, her mind pursuing her gaze over the rooftops of the city, had sighed, a conspicuous event, for usually she could be depended on to be more quietly alert to
