“That is an utter falsehood,” retorted Rita, calmly.  “Whoever told you that she went there with Querida, lied.”

“You think so?”

“I know so!  She went alone.”

“Then we’ll let it go at that,” said Allaire so unpleasantly that Rita took fiery offence.

“There is not a man living who has the right to look sideways at Valerie West!  Everybody knows it—­Neville, Querida, Sam, John Burleson—­even you know it!  If a man or two has touched her finger tips—­her waist—­her lips, perhaps—­no man has obtained more than that of her—­dared more than that!  I have never heard that any man has ever even ventured to offend her ears, unless”—­she added with malice, “that is the reason that she accepts no more invitations from you and your intimate friends.”

Allaire managed to smile and continue to paint.  But later he found use for his palette knife—­which was unusual in a painter as clever as he and whose pride was in his technical skill with materials used and applied premier coup.

With October came the opening of many theatres; a premature gaiety animated the hotels and restaurants; winter fabrics, hats, furs, gowns, appeared in shops; the glittering windows along Fifth Avenue reflected more limousines and fewer touring bodies passing.  Later top hats reappeared on street and in lobby; and when the Opera reopened, Long Island, Jersey, and Westchester were already beginning to pour in cityward, followed later by Newport, Lenox, and Bar Harbour.  The police put on their new winter uniforms; furs were displayed in carriages, automobiles, and theatres; the beauty of the florist’s windows became mellower, richer, and more splendid; the jewellery in the restaurants more gorgeous.  Gotham was beginning to be its own again, jacked up by the Horse Show, the New Theatre, and the Opera; and by that energetic Advertising Trust Company with its branches, dependencies, and mergers, which is called Society, and which is a matter of eternal vigilance and desperate business instead of the relaxation of cultivated security in an accepted and acceptable order of things.

Among other minor incidents, almost local in character, the Academy and Society of American Artists opened its doors.  And the exhibition averaged as well as it ever will, as badly as it ever had averaged.  Allaire showed two portraits of fashionable women, done, this time, in the manner of Zorn, and quite as clever on the streaky surface.  Sam Ogilvy proudly displayed another mermaid—­Rita in_ the tub—­and two babies from photographs and “chic”—­very bad; but as usual it was very quickly marked sold.

Annan had a portrait of his sister Alice, poorly painted and even recognised by some of her more intimate friends.  Clive Gail offered one of his marines—­waves splashing and dashing all over the canvas so realistically that women instinctively stepped back and lifted their skirts, and men looked vaguely around for a waiter—­at least Ogilvy said so.  As for Neville, he had a single study to show—­a full length—­just the back and head and the soft contour of limbs melting into a luminously sombre background—­a masterpiece in technical perfection, which was instantly purchased by a wise and Western millionaire, and which left the public staring but unmoved.