There was a piano, black and neurotic. Giraldy could play and frequently did, light things of the music halls, his ring dashing about over the keys like a mad jewel. He made a captivating host, having a certain male charm about him, very difficult to describe, that made him efface himself as much as possible, without actual diffidence, so that the burden of entertainment fell largely upon others with the result that they courted him rather than his having to court them. He served Benedictines to the women and Scotch and soda to the men. Blair wondered at the distinction. A rapturous young woman, whose name was Fairchild, was an incessant guest of theirs. She frequently took dinner with them before the others arrived. At such times she had her highball, cool as any man could be, yet later on in the course of the evening Blair would see her sipping cordial sweet as glycerin with the ladies, too delicate to swallow it outright. She chanted when Giraldy played and once she gave an exhibition of a nautch dance with an Eastern scarf.
