But dressmaking occupied most of the evenings. There was usually a garment of some kind in process of manufacture, or a dress to be ripped to pieces and its materials used in new ways. Alice acted as model no matter for whom the work was intended. She had infinite patience and could stand indefinitely, sometimes with a bit of sewing in her hands, sometimes with a book propped before her on the mantel, indifferent and unconcerned, while her mother and sister crawled around her on the floor, pinning, pulling and draping the material about her young figure, or else sitting back on their heels and arguing with each other, while they eyed her with heads first on one side, then on the other.
To-night Jeannette was making herself a corset cover, Alice was struggling over a school essay on “Home Life of the Greeks in the Age of Pericles,” and Mrs. Sturgis was darning. They had not been more than half-an-hour at their work, when there was the sound of masculine feet mounting the stairs, a hesitating step in the hall, and a brief ring of the doorbell. They glanced at one another questioningly and Alice rose. Alice always answered the bell.
“If it’s old Bellini wanting you to-night....” Jeannette began in annoyance. But the man’s voice that reached them was no messenger’s; it was polite and friendly, and it was for Alice’s sister he inquired. Jeannette found Dikron Najarian in the front room. The young man was all bashful breathlessness.
“There’s an Armenian society here in New York, Miss Sturgis. My father was one of its organizers, has been a member for years. We’re having a dance to-night at Weidermann’s Hall on Amsterdam Avenue, and my cousin, Louisa, who was going with me, is ill; she has a bad toothache. I have her ticket and ... will you come in her place? Rosa’s going, of course, and ... tell your mother I’ll bring you home at twelve o’clock.”
It was said in an anxious rush, with hopeful eagerness. Jeannette, bewildered, went to consult her mother. Mrs. Sturgis hastily pinned one of her jabots around her neck and appeared to confront young Najarian in the studio. She listened to the invitation thoughtfully, her head cocked upon one side, her lips pursed in judicial fashion. Janny was still very young, she explained; she had never attended anything quite--quite so grown-up, she was used only to the parties her school friends sometimes asked her to, and Mrs. Sturgis was afraid....