The door was opened immediately and the three guests of honor, apparently
very late, as a large room beyond the vestibule appeared to be crowded,
were marshaled up a narrow stair into a dressing-room under the eaves.
"Looks like the loft of a barn," grumbled Aileen. There was no attendant to
hear. "Well, I'm not going to leave my cloak, for several reasons--only one
of which is that if this room is a sample my ill-covered bones will rattle
together downstairs."
She wore a gown of black chiffon with a green jade necklace and a band of
green in her fashionably done fair hair. Alexina's gown was a soft white
satin that fitted closely and made her look very tall and slim and round,
the corsage trimmed with the only color she ever wore. Her hair was done in
a classic knot and held with a comb--a present from Aileen--designed from
periwinkles and green leaves and sparkling dew-drops.
Gora shook out the skirt of her only evening-gown, a well-made black satin,
very severe, but always relieved by a flower of some sort. To-night she
wore a poinsettia, whose peculiarly vivid red brought out the warm browns
of her skin and hair. She had a superb neck and shoulders and bust, and the
skin of her body was a delicate honey color that melted imperceptibly into
the deeper tones of her throat and face.
"Alexina," she said, "let us perish but exhibit all our points. Your arms
and hands were modeled for some untraced Greek ancestress and born again.
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