beautiful legs; but they were hardly better than Fanny's; why in the
name of God was he captivated by Anette's casual ankles and indifferent
to his wife's?

Women's legs--they were even no longer hidden--were only a reasonable
anatomical provision exactly shared by men. Why, he particularized, did
he prefer them in silk stockings rather than bare, and in black more
than bright colors? Anette's had never failed to excite his
imagination, but Alice Lucian's, graceful enough, were without interest
for him. How stupid was the spectacle of women in tights! Short bathing
skirts left him cold, but the unexpected, the casual, the vagaries of
fashion and the wind, were unfailingly potential. Humiliating, he
thought, a curiosity that should be left with the fresh experience of
youth; but it wasn't--comic opera with its choruses and the burlesque
stage were principally the extravagances of middle age.

* * * * *

The orange juice and square bottles of clear gin, the array of glasses
and ice-filled pewter pitcher in which Lee mixed his drinks, were
standing conveniently on a table in the small reception room. Fanny, in
a lavender dress with a very full skirt decorated with erratically
placed pale yellow flowers, had everything in readiness. "Mina Raff
came," she announced, as he descended the stairs. "Anette telephoned.
To be quite frank I didn't much care whether she did or didn't. She
used to be too stiff, too selfish, I thought; and I never liked
Anette."

"Nothing but prejudice, that," he replied decidedly. "Anette has a very
good head. You have just heard stories from envious women." He was