Perhaps Jim
Dyckman saw it in the papers. At least he and his yacht drifted into
the harbor the day of the affair. Of course he had an invitation.
The Noxon affair was the usual thing, only a little more so. People
dressed themselves as costlily as they could, for hours beforehand
--then spent a half-hour or more fuming in a carriage-and-motor
tangle waiting to arrive at the entrance, while the heat sweat all
the starch out of themselves and their clothes.
A constant flood poured in upon Mrs. Noxon, or tried to find her
at the receiving-post. She was usually not there. She was like
a general running a big battle. She had to gallop to odd spots
now and then.
The tradition of her selectness received a severe strain in the
presence of such hordes of guests. They trod on one another's toes,
tripped on one another's parasols, beg-pardoned with ill-restrained
wrath, failed to get near enough to see the sights, stood on tiptoe
or bent down to peer through elbows like children outside a
ball-park.
The entertainment was vaudeville disguised by expense. It was not
easy to hold the attention of those surfeited eyes and ears. Actors
and actresses of note almost perished with wrath and humiliation
at the indifference to their arts. Loud laughter from the back rows
broke in at the wrong time, and appalling silences greeted the times
to laugh.
The fame, or notoriety, of the Silsby dancers attracted a part of
the throng to the marble swimming-pool and the terraced fountain
with its deluged statuary.
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