On a Sunday afternoon in March, Keating drove to the Holcombe mansion–a reproduction of a Florentine palazzo–dutifully, but a little reluctantly. He had been a frequent guest at these celebrated gatherings and he was beginning to be bored, for he knew everybody he could expect to find there. He felt, however, that he had to attend this time, because the occasion was to be in honor of the completion of one more capitol by Ralston Holcombe in some state or another.
A substantial crowd was lost in the marble ballroom of the Holcombes, scattered in forlorn islets through an expanse intended for court receptions. The guests stood about, self-consciously informal, working at being brilliant. Steps rang against the marble with the echoing sound of a crypt. The flames of tall candles clashed desolately with the gray of the light from the street; the light made the candles seem dimmer, the candles gave to the day outside a premonitory tinge of dusk. A scale model of the new state capitol stood displayed on a pedestal in the middle of the room, ablaze with tiny electric bulbs.
Mrs. Ralston Holcombe presided over the tea table. Each guest accepted a fragile cup of transparent porcelain, took two delicate sips and vanished in the direction of the bar. Two stately butlers went about collecting the abandoned cups.
Mrs. Ralston Holcombe, as an enthusiastic girl friend had described her, was “petite, but intellectual.” Her diminutive stature was her secret sorrow, but she had learned to find compensations. She could talk, and did, of wearing dresses size ten and of shopping in the junior departments. She wore high-school garments and short socks in summer, displaying spindly legs with hard blue veins. She adored celebrities. That was her mission in life. She hunted them grimly; she faced them with wide-eyed admiration and spoke of her own insignificance, of her humility before achievement; she shrugged, tight-lipped and rancorous, whenever one of them did not seem to take sufficient account of her own views on life after death, the theory of relativity, Aztec architecture, birth control and the movies. She had a great many poor friends and advertised the fact. If a friend happened to improve his financial position, she dropped him, feeling that he had committed an act of treason. She hated the wealthy in all sincerity: they shared her only badge of distinction. She considered architecture her private domain. She had been christened Constance and found it awfully clever to be known as “Kiki,” a nickname she had forced on her friends when she was well past thirty.
Keating had never felt comfortable in Mrs. Holcombe’s presence, because she smiled at him too insistently and commented on his remarks by winking and saying: “Why, Peter, how naughty of you!” when no such intention had been in his mind at all. He bowed over her hand, however, this afternoon as usual, and she smiled from behind the silver teapot. She wore a regal gown of emerald velvet, and a magenta ribbon in her bobbed hair with a cute little bow in front. Her skin was tanned and dry, with enlarged pores showing on her nostrils. She handed a cup to Keating, a square-cut emerald glittering on her finger in the candlelight.
Keating expressed his admiration for the capitol and escaped to examine the model. He stood before it for a correct number of minutes, scalding his lips with the hot liquid that smelled of cloves. Holcombe, who never looked in the direction of the model and never missed a guest stopping before it, slapped Keating’s shoulder and said something appropriate about young fellows learning the beauty of the style of the Renaissance. Then Keating wandered off, shook a few hands without enthusiasm, and glanced at his wrist watch, calculating the time when it would be permissible to leave. Then he stopped.
Beyond a broad arch, in a small library, with three young men beside her, he saw Dominique Francon.
She stood leaning against a column, a cocktail glass in her hand. She wore a suit of black velvet; the heavy cloth, which transmitted no light rays, held her anchored to reality by stopping the light that flowed too freely through the flesh of her hands, her neck, her face. A white spark of fire flashed like a cold metallic cross in the glass she held, as if it were a lens gathering the diffused radiance of her skin.
Keating tore forward and found Francon in the crowd. “Well, Peter!” said Francon brightly. “Want me to get you a drink? Not so hot,” he added, lowering his voice, “but the Manhattans aren’t too bad.”
“No,” said Keating, “thanks.”
“Entre nous,” said Francon, winking at the model of the capitol, “it’s a holy mess, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” said Keating. “Miserable proportions….That dome looks like Holcombe’s face imitating a sunrise on the roof….” They had stopped in full view of the library and Keating’s eyes were fixed on the girl in black, inviting Francon to notice it; he enjoyed having Francon in a trap.
“And the plan! The plan! Do you see that on the second floor…oh,” said Francon, noticing.
He looked at Keating, then at the library, then at Keating again.
“Well,” said Francon at last, “don’t blame me afterward. You’ve asked for it. Come on.”
They entered the library together. Keating stopped, correctly, but allowing his eyes an improper intensity, while Francon beamed with unconvincing cheeriness:
“Dominique, my dear! May I present?–this is Peter Keating, my own right hand. Peter–my daughter.”
“How do you do,” said Keating, his voice soft.
Dominique bowed gravely.
“I have waited to meet you for such a long time, Miss Francon.”
“This will be interesting,” said Dominique. “You will want to be nice to me, of course, and yet that won’t be diplomatic.”
“What do you mean, Miss Francon?”
“Father would prefer you to be horrible with me. Father and I don’t get along at all.”
“Why, Miss Francon, I…”
“I think it’s only fair to tell you this at the beginning. You may want to redraw some conclusions.” He was looking for Francon, but Francon had vanished. “No,” she said softly, “Father doesn’t do these things well at all. He’s too obvious. You asked him for the introduction, but he shouldn’t have let me notice that. However, it’s quite all right, since we both admit it. Sit down.”
She slipped into a chair and he sat down obediently beside her. The young men whom he did not know stood about for a few minutes, trying to be included in the conversation by smiling blankly, then wandered off. Keating thought with relief that there was nothing frightening about her; there was only a disquieting contrast between her words and the candid innocence of the manner she used to utter them; he did not know which to trust.
“I admit I asked for the introduction,” he said. “That’s obvious anyway, isn’t it? Who wouldn’t ask for it? But don’t you think that the conclusions I’ll draw may have nothing to do with your father?”
“Don’t say that I’m beautiful and exquisite and like no one you’ve ever met before and that you’re very much afraid that you’re going to fall in love with me. You’ll say it eventually, but let’s postpone it. Apart from that, I think we’ll get along very nicely.”
“But you’re trying to make it very difficult for me, aren’t you?”
“Yes. Father should have warned you.”
“He did.”
“You should have listened. Be very considerate of Father. I’ve met so many of his own right hands that I was beginning to be skeptical. But you’re the first one who’s lasted. And who looks like he’s going to last. I’ve heard a great deal about you. My congratulations.”
“I’ve been looking forward to meeting you for years. And I’ve been reading your column with so much…” He stopped. He knew he shouldn’t have mentioned that; and, above all, he shouldn’t have stopped.
“So much…?” she asked gently.
“…so much pleasure,” he finished, hoping that she would let it go at that.
“Oh, yes,” she said. “The Ainsworth house. You designed it. I’m sorry. You just happened to be the victim of one of my rare attacks of honesty. I don’t have them often. As you know, if you’re read my stuff yesterday.”
“I’ve read it. And–well, I’ll follow your example and I’ll be perfectly frank. Don’t take it as a complaint–one must never complain against one’s critics. But really that capitol of Holcombe’s is much worse in all those very things that you blasted us for. Why did you give him such a glowing tribute yesterday? Or did you have to?”
“Don’t flatter me. Of course I didn’t have to. Do you think anyone on the paper pays enough attention to a column on home decoration to care what I say in it? Besides, I’m not even supposed to write about capitols. Only I’m getting tired of home decorations.”
“Then why did you praise Holcombe?”