After this interview Keith experienced a marked and formal coldness from nearly all of his old associates, Those with whom he came into direct personal contact showed him scrupulous politeness, but confined their conversation to the briefest necessary words, and quit him as soon as possible. He found himself very much alone, for at this period he had lost the confidence of one faction and had not yet gained that of the other.
His investigations encountered always increasing difficulties. In his own department he could obtain little assistance. A dead inertia opposed all his efforts. Nevertheless, he went ahead doggedly, using Krafft and some of Krafft's proteges to considerable effect.
But soon pressure was brought on him from a new direction: his opponents struck at him through his home.
For some days Nan had been aware of a changed atmosphere in the society she frequented and had heretofore led. The change was subtle, defied analysis, but was to the woman's sensitive instincts indubitable. At first she had been inclined to consider it subjective, to imagine that something wrong with herself must be projecting itself through her imagination; but finally she realized that the impression was well based. In people's attitude there was nothing overt; it was rather a withdrawl of intimacy, a puzzling touch of formality. She seemed overnight to have lost in popularity.
Truth to tell, she paid little attention to this. By now she was experienced enough in human nature to understand and to be able to gauge the slight fluctuations, the ebbs and flows of esteem, the kaleidoscopic shiftings and realignments of the elements of frivolous and formal society. Mrs. Brown had hired away Mrs. Smith's best servant; for an hour they looked askance on Mrs. Brown; then, the episode forgotten, Mrs. Brown's cork bobbed to the surface company of all the other corks. It was very trivial. Besides, just at this moment, Nan was wholly occupied with preparations for her first "afternoon" of the year. She intended as usual to give three of these formal affairs, and from them the season took its tone. The list was necessarily far from exclusive, but Nan made up for that by the care she gave her most original arrangements. She prided herself on doing things simply, but with a difference, calling heavily on her resources of correspondence, her memory, and her very good imagination for some novelty of food or entertainment. At the first of these receptions, too, she wore always for the first time some new and marvellous toilet straight from Paris, the style of which had not been shown to even her most intimate friends. This year, for example, she had done the most obvious and, therefore, the most unlikely thing: she had turned to the contemporaneous Spanish for her theme. Nobody had thought of that. The Colonial, the Moorish, the German, the Russian, the Hungarian--all the rest of the individual or "picturesque"--but nobody had thought to look next door. Nan had decorated the rooms with yellow and red, hung the walls with riatas, strings of red peppers and the like, obtained Spanish guitar players, and added enough fiery Mexican dishes to the more digestible refreshments to emphasize the Spanish flavour. She wore a dress of golden satin, a wreath of coral flowers about her hair, and morocco slippers matched in hue.
The afternoon was fine. People were slow in coming. A few of the nondescripts that must be invited on such occasions put in an appearance, responded hastily to their hostess's greeting, and wandered about furtively but interminably. Patricia Sherwood, who had come early, circulated nobly, trying to break up the frozen little groups, but in vain. The time passed. More non-descripts--and not a soul else! As five o'clock neared, a cold fear clutched at Nan's heart. No one was coming!
She worked hard to cover with light graciousness the cold-hearted dismay that filled her breast as the party dragged its weary length away. All her elaborate preparations and decorations seemed to mock her. The Spanish orchestra tinkled away gayly until she felt she could throw something at them; the caterer's servants served solemnly the awed nondescripts. Nan's cheeks burned and her throat choked with unshed tears. She could not bear to look at Patsy Sherwood, who remained tactfully distant.
About five-thirty the door opened to admit a little group, at the sight of whom Nan uttered a short, hysterical chuckle. Then she glided to meet them, both hands outstretched in welcome, Mrs. Sherwood watched her with admiration. Nan was game.
There were three in the party: Mrs. Morrell, Sally Warner, and Mrs. Scattergood. Sally Warner was of the gushing type of tall, rather desiccated femininity who always knows you so much better than you know her, who cultivates you every moment for a week and forgets you for months on end, who is hard up and worldly and therefore calculating, whose job is to amuse people and who will therefore sacrifice her best, perhaps not most useful, friend to an epigram, whose wit is barbed, who has a fine nose for trouble, and who is always in at the death. Mrs. Scattergood was a small blond woman, high voiced, precise in manner, very positive in her statements which she delivered in a drawling tone, humourless, inquisitive about petty affairs, the sort of "good woman" with whom no fault can be found, but who drives men to crime. Mrs. Morrell we know.
These three, after greeting their hostess gushingly, circulated compactly, talking to each other in low voices. Nan knew they were watching her, and that they had come for the sole purpose of getting first-hand details of her fiasco for later recounting in drawing-rooms where, undoubtedly, even now awaited eager auditors. She came to a decision. The matter could not be worse. When, the three came to make their farewells, she detained them.
"No, I'm not going to let you go yet," she told them, perhaps a little imperiously. "I haven't had half a visit with you. Wait until this rabble clears out."
She hesitated a moment over Mrs. Sherwood, but finally let her go without protest. When the last guest had departed she sank into a chair. As she was already on the verge of hysterics, she easily kept up an air of gayety.
"Girls, what an awful party!" she cried. "I could tear my hair! It was a perfect nightmare." Struggling to control her voice and keep back her tears, she added abruptly: "Now tell me what it is all about."
Mrs. Morrell and Sally Warner were plainly uneasy and at a loss how to meet this situation, but Mrs. Scattergood remained quite composed in her small, compact way.
"What's what all about, Nan, dear?" asked Sally Warner in her most vivacious manner. She keenly felt the dramatic situation and was already visualizing herself in the role of raconteuse.
"You know perfectly well. Why this funeral? Where are they all? Why did they stay away? I have a right to know."
"I'm sure there's nothing _I_ can think of!" replied Sally artificially. "The idea!"
But Mrs. Scattergood, with all ............