When she had gone, Olaf said to me, abruptly, "Why does she wear gray?"
"Oh, she has worked out a theory that repression in color is an evidence of advanced civilization. The Japanese, for example--"
"Why should civilization advance? It has gone far enough--too far--And she should wear a blue cloak--sea-blue--the color of her eyes--"
They were almost uncannily alike. I had noticed it when I saw them together. But there the resemblance stopped.
"She lives in New York. But every drop of blood in her is seafaring blood."
"Good!" He sat for a moment in silence, then spoke of something else. But when he was ready to go, he included Nancy in an invitation. "If you and Miss Greer could lunch with me to-morrow on my yacht--"
I was not sure about Nancy's engagements, but I thought we might. "You can call us up in the morning."
Nancy brought the Drakes and Bob Needham back with her for supper, and Mimi Sears was with Anthony. Supper on Sunday is an informal meal--everything on the table and the servants out.
Nancy, clothed in something white and exquisite, served the salad. "So your young viking didn't stay, Elizabeth?"
It was then that she spoke of his frowning gaze. "Does he always stare like that?"
Anthony, breaking in, demanded, "Did he stare at Nancy?"
"Yes. He said that her cloak should have matched them."
Anthony flushed. He has a rather captious code for outsiders. Evidently Olaf had transgressed it.
"Then why should he talk of Nancy's clothes?"
"Well," Nancy remarked, "perhaps the less said about my clothes the better. I was in my bathing suit."
Anthony was irritable. "Well, why not? You had a right to wear what you pleased, but he did not have a right to make remarks about it."
I came to Olaf's defense. "You would understand better if you could see him. He is rather different, Anthony."
"I don't like different people," and in that sentence was a summary of Anthony's prejudices. He and Nancy mingled with their own kind. Anthony's friends were the men who had gone to the right schools, who lived in the right streets, belonged to the right clubs, and knew the right people. Within those limits, humanity might do as it pleased; without them, it was negligible, and not to be considered.