The week after, the Leathershams gave a party. The gilt-chaired audience listened to Sable Caviaro the new Russian violinist and Slubber D. Gullion, who discoursed on the Current Trend of Current Bolshe Vikings. The refreshing episode consisted of champagne and Saratoga chips. CHAPTER VIII The Restless Sexteen was the record altitude of Butterfly Center. It was the elect and select of the intellect; it was the whole show--the very Wholly of Whollies. To belong to it was canonization. Though some of its members also belonged to the Toddletopsis Club, it meant their leading a double life. The Restless Sexteen were mostly young married women with their husbands as nonresident members. They studied higher psychology and broader psychopathy. The wrestled with and threw Einstein and let themselves dream again with Freud. Psychoanalysis was their washpot, and over the fourth dimension did they cast their shoes. Their afternoon digest was held at Faith Loveman's and Warble went. The Loveman home was an abstract bungalow, which showed rather plainly the iron hand in the velvet glove influence of the Japanese. The large light hall had a built-in abstract table, and on this was an enormous bronze plaque which held a thin layer of water on which rested one pansy. Faith's devotion to the Doctrine of Elimination allowed nothing else in the hall, but in the living room there were three whole pieces of furniture besides, of course, the caterer's gilt chairs brought in to hold the restless sex as they tried to rest from their restlessness. Faith Loveman looked curiously at Warble. “You can't be very restless,” she observed, “you'd be thinner.” Warble smiled engagingly. “I do want to be thinner,” she conciliated, “how can I?” And, somehow, that started them all off. They restlessly gave advice, recommended certain exercises, uncertain drugs and most unattractive diets. They told their own experiences, extolled or berated their masseuses, scribbled addresses of corsetieres for one another, and in their interest and restless excitement they forgot all about Warble and she wanted to go home. But she had her mission to perform, and she waited until they restlessly changed the subject. They discussed current plays and seemed to get out of them far more than the author ever put in. They talked of a picture exhibit at the Gauguin Galleries, but this was as Choctaw to Warble; not a word could she understand. “Are you of the cognoscenti?” asked Faith Loveman of Warble. “I know all about art but I don't know what I like,” she returned, blushing prettily. “Oh, we'll teach you that. That's what this club is for, to help us to find ourselves, to give our restlessness an outlet to express the ego in our cosmos and illumine the dark patches of our souls. We're riding the pace that kills, living at the tension that snaps, blowing the bubble that breaks. We need an outlet--a vent--you understand?” “Yop,” said Warble, “your soul pressure is too high.”