The Dark Lady by Louis Auchincloss, Thomas Auchincloss Read Free Book Online

think I should tell you that I have decided not to invite Miss Dart to our musicale on the thirteenth."
    "But I've already asked her!"
    Clara's expression became at once inscrutable. Faced with insurrection, she retired behind the silently closed doors of her impassivity. At the sound of the alarm small, dark heads would appear on the top of marble walls. Boiling water. Molten lead.
    "You told me I might!" Ivy pursued hotly.
    "I think your memory is at fault, dear. I told you
I
might. It did not occur to me that you would act as my delegate. I'm afraid that you will have to
décommander
Miss Dart."
    "What has she done to you?"
    "Nothing whatever to me. But Irving was most upset last Saturday night."
    "That was hardly Elesina's fault."
    "Your friend struck me as having an unsettling influence on the party. Maybe I'm being unfair, but even you will have to admit that she's a controversial character. She's been twice divorced, under decidedly unsavory circumstances. She abandoned her child. She is partial to stimulating drinks..."
    "You've been investigating her!"
    "The facts were not hard to come by."
    "And I suppose nobody with those faults has ever been numbered among the guests at Broadlawns!"
    "I don't think I like your tone, Ivy."
    "How do you think I like yours?"
    There was a moment of silence as they took each other in. The dark heads were lined up along the walls, the buckets poised. Then the drawbridge fell. The trumpet called for a parley.
    "I suppose it's best to be candid," Clara said with a sigh. "Evidently you and I have been developing resentments against each other. I have imagined, for example, that you have been growing more worldly. More cynical. Indeed, it has struck me quite frequently in the past year."
    "Worldly! This from the mistress of Broadlawns?"
    "I don't judge worldliness by possessions. I judge it by character."
    "And I'm too cynical for
your
parties? I and poor Elesina?" Ivy laughed. It was a hard, braying, mocking laugh. The empress-commander paused, perhaps nonplused. What would they say on the ramparts? Would that laugh find an echo?
    "At any rate, I shall expect neither of you at the musicale. I am sorry
you
will not be there, but the decision, you must admit, has not been mine."
    It took Ivy until lunchtime to recognize that she had broken definitively with Clara Stein. All morning she half expected to pick up her telephone and hear Clara's voice assuring her that what had passed was simple madness. But that would not have been Clara's way. It would always be possible for Ivy to throw herself on Clara's mercy and beg forgiveness, after which she might expect to be reinstated in the Stein circle on a guarded provisional basis. But the first move would have to come from her. Clara did not need her. Clara did not need anyone. She expected to be surrounded by a tapestry of approving human faces, but whose they were at any particular time made little matter. In the month that followed no invitation came from 68th Street to the Althorpe. The break seemed final.
    When Ivy heard from Fred Pemberton that Clara had gone to Florida for her annual visit to her old mother, she sent a note to Irving:
    "I hear you're a bachelor. Could I break in on your busy liberty and claim you for one night—Wednesday dinner? I shall try to have some amusing people. Elesina Dart will be so happy to see you again. You made an immense impression there!"
    She had assumed that Clara would not have mentioned the cause of the dispute to her husband. He accepted immediately, by telephone, stating gallantly that he was breaking an engagement to do so.
    "I think I'll ask Sam Gorman," Ivy told Elesina. "He irritates Irving, it's true, but if he gets too fresh, you can slap him down, and Irving will be enchanted."
    "Ivy, you old schemer! What makes you think I'd take the Judge's side against Sam?"
    "Well, don't you want to help me get back into Clara's favor? It was you who lost it for me. If I can persuade Irving to