Miss Heilprinn looked the very distinguished woman that she was. Hers was the talent of the administrator, the ability to get things done, and one knew at a glance that in the rough and tumble of practical affairs this bland lady was more than a match for any man. She suggested oil—smooth oil, oil of tremendous driving power and generating force.
Along Broadway she had reigned for years as the governing brain of a celebrated art theatre, and her business acuity had wrung homage even from her enemies. It had been her function to promote, to direct, to control, and in the tenuous and uncertain speculations of the theatre to take care not to be fleeced by the wolves of Broadway. The brilliance of her success, the power of her will, and the superior quality of her metal were written plain upon her. It took no very experienced observer to see that in the unequal contest between Miss Heilprinn and the wolves of Broadway it had been the wolves who had been worsted.
In that savage and unremitting warfare, which arouses such bitter passions and undying hatreds that eyes become jaundiced and lips so twisted that they are never afterwards able to do anything but writhe like yellowed scars on haggard faces, had Miss Heilprinn’s face grown hard? Had her mouth contracted to a grim line? Had her jaw out-jutted like a granite crag? Were the marks of the wars visible anywhere upon her? Not at all. The more murderous the fight, the blander her face. The more treacherous the intrigues in which Broadway’s life involved her, the more mellow became the fruity lilt of her good-humoured chuckle. She had actually thriven on it. Indeed, as one of her colleagues said: “Roberta never seems so happy and so unconsciously herself as when she is playing about in a nest of rattlesnakes.”
So, now, as she stood there talking to Mrs. Jack, she presented a very handsome and striking appearance. Her grey hair was combed in a pompadour, and her suave and splendid gown gave the finishing touch to her general air of imperturbable assurance. Her face was almost impossibly bland, but it was a blandness without hypocrisy. Nevertheless, one saw that her twinkling eyes, which narrowed into such jolly slits when she smiled, were sharp as flint and missed nothing.
In a curious way, Mrs. Jack was a more complex person than her smooth companion. She was essentially not less shrewd, not less accomplished, not less subtle, and not less determined to secure her own ends in this hard world, but her strategy had been different.
Most people thought her “such a romantic person”. As her friends said, she was “so beautiful”, she was “such a child”, she was “so good”. Yes, she was all these things. For she had early learned the advantages of possessing a rosy, jolly little face and a manner of slightly bewildered surprise and naive innocence. When she smiled doubtfully yet good-naturedly at her friends, it was as if to say: “Now I know you’re laughing at me, aren’t you? I don’t know what it is. I don’t know what I’ve done or said now. Of course I’m not clever the way you are—all of you are so frightfully smart—but anyway I have a good time, and I like you all.”
To many people that was the essential Mrs. Jack. Only a few knew that there was a great deal more to her than met the eye. The bland lady who now stood talking to her was one of these. Miss Roberta Heilprinn missed no artifice of that almost unconsciously deceptive innocence. And perhaps that is why, when Mrs. Jack finished her anecdote and looked at old Jake Abramson so comically and questioningly, Miss Heilprinn’s eye twinkled a little brighter, her Buddhistic smile became a little smoother, and her yolky chuckle grew a trifle more infectious. Perhaps that is also why, with a sudden impulse of understanding and genuine affection, Miss Heilprinn bent and kissed the glowing little cheek.
And the object of this caress, although she never changed her expression of surprised and delighted innocence, knew full well all that was going on in the other woman’s mind. For just a moment, almost imperceptibly, the eyes of the two women, stripped bare of all concealing artifice, met each other. And in that moment there was matter for Olympian laughter.
While Mrs. Jack welcomed her friends and beamed with happiness, one part of her mind remained aloof and preoccupied. For someone was still absent, and she kept thinking of him.
“I wonder where he is,” she thought. “Why doesn’t he come? I hope he hasn’t been drinking.” She looked quickly over the brilliant gathering with a troubled eye and thought impatiently: “If only he liked parties more! If only he enjoyed meeting people—going out in the evening! Oh, well—he’s the way he is. It’s no use trying to change him. I wouldn’t have him any different.”
And then he arrived.
“Here he is!” she thought excitedly, looking at him with instant relief. “And he’s all right!”