ascended to the balcony, pulled off his clothes and tossed them in a heap, and fell into the deep drugged sleep of drunkenness and exhaustion.
He slept till noon; and was awakened by the sound of steps below, the opening and closing of the door, and suddenly a woman’s voice, light, gay, authoritative, and incisive:
“Darling, we’re back again!” the gay, light voice cried out. “Welcome to our city! Happy New Year,” she went on more quietly, and with a note of tender intimacy. “How have you been?”
He heard Starwick’s quiet voice as it answered her, and presently the low, brief, and almost sullen tones of another woman. Starwick called sleepily up to Eugene, telling him to dress at once and come down: when he got downstairs, Starwick and the two women were waiting for him.
The one with the light, gay, incisive voice greeted him warmly and cordially, and made him feel instantly at home. She seemed to be the older of the two, and yet there was not much difference in their age. The other woman shook hands with him almost curtly, and muttered a few words of greeting. She was a big dark-haired New England sort of girl; she wore dark, drab, rusty-looking clothes, and her face had a sullen, almost heavy cast to it. While Starwick, and the other woman, whose name was Elinor, rattled gaily on together, the dark girl sat sullenly and awkwardly in her chair and said nothing. Once or twice they spoke to her: she had a way of answering with a few curt sullen words and a short angry laugh, which went as quickly as it came, and left her face heavy and sullen again. But the moment she laughed, Eugene noticed that her mouth was very red and sweet, her teeth beautifully white, and for a moment the girl’s sullen face was illuminated by a radiant tender loveliness. He heard Frank call her Ann: Starwick seemed to want to tease her, and when he spoke to her there was a little burble of malicious laughter in his voice. Turning to Eugene, his pleasant face reddening and the burble of malicious laughter playing in his throat, Frank said:
“She is very beautiful. You’d never think it, but she really is, you know.”
Ann muttered something short and angry, and her face flushing, she laughed her short sudden laugh of anger and exasperation. And as she did so, her face came alive at once with its radiant loveliness, and he saw that what Starwick said of her was true.
