Almost no one was left to witness the concluding scenes of Mr. Piggy Logan’s circus except the uninvited group of his own particular friends.
Out in the hall Mrs. Jack found Lily Mandell talking to George Webber. She approached them with a bright, affectionate little smile and queried hopefully:
“Are you enjoying it, Lily? And you, darling?”—turning fondly to George—“Do you like it? Are you having a good time?” Lily answered in a tone of throaty disgust:
“When he kept on pushing that long pin into the doll and all its insides began oozing out—ugh!”—she made a nauseous face—“I simply couldn’t stand it any longer! It was horrible! I had to get out! I thought I was going to puke!”
Mrs. Jack’s shoulders shook, her face reddened, and she gasped in a hysterical whisper:
“I know! Wasn’t it awful!”
“But what is it, anyway?” said the attorney, Roderick Hale, as he came up and joined them.
“Oh, hello, Rod!” said Mrs. Jack. “What do you make of it Hale?”
“I can’t make it out,” he said, with an annoyed look into the living-room, where Piggy Logan was still patiently carrying on. “What is it all supposed to be, anyway? And who is this fellow?” he said in an irritated tone, as if his legal and fact-finding mind was annoyed by a phenomenon he could not fathom. “It’s like some puny form of decadence,” he murmured.
Just then Mr. Jack approached his wife and, lifting his shoulders in a bewildered shrug, said:
“What is it? My God, perhaps I’m crazy!”
Mrs. Jack and Lily Mandell bent together, shuddering helplessly as women do when they communicate whispered laughter to one another.
“Poor Fritz!” Mrs. Jack gasped faintly.
Mr. Jack cast a final bewildered look into the living-room, surveyed the wreckage there, then turned away with a short laugh:
“I’m going to my room!” he said with decision. “Let me know if he leaves the furniture!”
19. Unscheduled Climax
At the conclusion of Mr. Logan’s performance there was a ripple of applause in the living-room, followed by the sound of voices. The fashionable young people clustered round Mr. Logan, chattering congratulations. Then, without paying attention to anybody else, and without a word to their hostess, they left.
Other people now gathered about Mrs. Jack and made their farewells. They began to leave, singly and in pairs and groups, until presently no one remained except those intimates and friends who are always the last to leave a big party—Mrs. Jack and her family, George Webber, Miss Mandell, Stephen Hook, and Amy Carleton. And, of course, Mr. Logan, who was busy amid the general wreckage he had created, putting his wire dolls back into his two enormous valises.
The atmosphere of the whole place was now curiously changed. It was an atmosphere of absence, of completion. Everybody felt a little bit as one feels in a house the day after Christmas, or an hour after a wedding, or on a great liner at one of the Channel ports when most of the passengers have disembarked and the sorrowful remnant know that the voyage is really over and that they are just marking time for a little while until their own hour comes to depart.
Mrs. Jack looked at Piggy Logan and at the chaos he had made of her fine room, and then glanced questioningly at Lily Mandell as if to say: “Can you understand all this? What has happened?” Miss Mandell and George Webber surveyed Mr. Logan with undisguised distaste. Stephen Hook remained aloof, looking bored. Mr. Jack, who had come forth from his room to bid his guests good-bye and had lingered by the elevator till the last one had gone, now peered in through the hall door at the kneeling figure in the living-room, and with a comical gesture of uplifted hands said: “What is it?”—leaving everybody convulsed with laughter.
‘But even when Mr. Jack came into the room and stood staring down quizzically, Mr. Logan did not look up. He seemed not to have heard anything. Utterly oblivious of their presence, he was happily absorbed in the methodical task of packing up the litter that surrounded him.
Meanwhile the two rosy-cheeked maids, May and Janie, were busily clearing away glasses, bottles, and bowls of ice, and Nora started putting the books back on their shelves. Mrs. Jack looked on rather helplessly, and Amy Carleton stretched herself out flat on the floor with her hands beneath her head, closed her eyes, and appeared to go to sleep. All the rest were obviously at a loss what to do, and just stood and sat around, waiting for Mr. Logan to finish and be gone.