The Butterfly House | Page 6

front room," she murmured, and
the two went up the polished stairs. There was a landing halfway, with
a diamond paned window and one rubber plant and two palms, all very
glossy, and all three in nice green jardinières which exactly matched
the paper on the walls of the hall. Mrs. George B. Slade had a mania for
exactly matching things. Some of her friends said among themselves
that she carried it almost too far.

The front room, the guest room, into which Alice Mendon and Daisy
Shaw passed, was done in yellow and white, and one felt almost sinful
in disturbing the harmony by any other tint. The walls were yellow,
with a frieze of garlands of yellow roses; the ceiling was tinted yellow,
the tiles on the shining little hearth were yellow, every ornament upon
the mantel-shelf was yellow, down to a china shepherdess who wore a
yellow china gown and carried a basket filled with yellow flowers, and
bore a yellow crook. The bedstead was brass, and there was a
counterpane of white lace over yellow, the muslin curtains were tied
back with great bows of yellow ribbon. Even the pictures represented
yellow flowers or maidens dressed in yellow. The rugs were yellow, the
furniture upholstered in yellow, and all of exactly the same shade.
There were a number of ladies in this yellow room, prinking
themselves before going downstairs. They all lived in Fairbridge; they
all knew each other; but they greeted one another with the most elegant
formality. Alice assisted Daisy Shaw to remove her coat and liberty
scarf, then she shook herself free of her own wraps, rather than
removed them. She did not even glance at herself in the glass. Her
reason for so doing was partly confidence in her own appearance,
partly distrust of the glass. She had viewed herself carefully in her own
looking-glass before she left home. She believed in what she had seen
there, but she did not care to disturb that belief, and she saw that Mrs.
Slade's mirror over her white and yellow draped dressing table stood in
a cross-light. While all admitted Alice Mendon's beauty, nobody had
ever suspected her of vanity; yet vanity she had, in a degree.
The other women in the room looked at her. It was always a matter of
interest of Fairbridge what she would wear, and this was rather curious,
as, after all, she had not many gowns. There was a certain
impressiveness about her mode of wearing the same gown which
seemed to create an illusion. To-day in her dark red gown embroidered
with poppies of still another shade, she created a distinctly new
impression, although she had worn the same costume often before at
the club meetings. She went downstairs in advance of the other women
who had arrived before, and were yet anxiously peering at themselves
in the cross-lighted mirror, and being adjusted as to refractory

neckwear by one another.
When Alice entered Mrs. Slade's elegant little reception-room, which
was done in a dull rose colour, its accessories very exactly matching,
even to Mrs. Slade's own costume, which was rose silk under black lace,
she was led at once to a lady richly attired in black, with gleams of jet,
who was seated in a large chair in the place of honour, not quite in the
bay window but exactly in the centre of the opening. The lady quite
filled the chair. She was very stout. Her face, under an ornate black hat,
was like a great rose full of overlapping curves of florid flesh. The wide
mouth was perpetually curved into a bow of mirth, the small black eyes
twinkled. She was Mrs. Sarah Joy Snyder, who had come from New
York to deliver her famous lecture upon the subject: "Where does a
woman shine with more lustre, at home or abroad?"
The programme was to be varied, as usual upon such occasions, by
local talent. Leila MacDonald, who sang contralto in the church choir,
and Mrs. Arthur Wells, who sang soprano, and Mrs. Jack Evarts, who
played the piano very well, and Miss Sally Anderson, who had taken
lessons in elocution, all had their parts, besides the president of the club,
Mrs. Wilbur Edes, who had a brief address in readiness, and the
secretary, who had to give the club report for the year. Mrs. Snyder was
to give her lecture as a grand climax, then there were to be light
refreshments and a reception following the usual custom of the club.
Alice bowed before Mrs. Snyder and retreated to a window at the other
side of the room. She sat beside the window and looked out. Just then
one of the other liverymen drove up with a carriage full of ladies, and
they emerged in a