coarser, later pieces. She knew something too, now, about the more primitive design, lovelier in its conception, because it was more honest, than the more elaborate, later traceries, created under Portuguese influence. . . . There had been a pleasant dinner party or two; she recalled with particular pleasure an evening at the Weston Underwoods' when she had met the new secretary to the Haytian consul. He spoke only French and she welcomed this opportunity to practise the language with a young man made more tolerant, perhaps, by his obvious interest in herself. It was agreeable, too, to meet some one who knew a great deal about Cocteau and Morand and Proust, knew about them, that is, in their relation to French literature in general. René Maran, the author of Batouala, he had actually been acquainted with. . . . One night, with Howard and Olive, she had witnessed Arms and the Man at the Guild. Theatre, and another she had attended a rent-party, given by some indigent girl friends, had paid fifty cents, and had been rewarded by a shower of gin and orange-juice over the front of one of her favourite frocks. Carbona, the next morning, had only partially removed the stain. The clumsy young man who had been responsible for the catastrophe had seemed more put out by the loss of the gin—his carelessness had exhausted the supply—than over the injury to her dress. Otherwise, however, it had been a gay evening. There had been dancing to the music of a phonograph in a two-room apartment
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