"You really mean that I may plan without counting the cost?"
"That's exactly what I mean. The man is yet to be born whose brain can conceive the plan to spend artistically on one night's entertainment the half I'm willing to blow in just now for such a triumph."
"Nothing cheap or vulgar about it, you know. I think that party in which the guests were drenched with a hose and the one in which they dressed as vegetables were slightly lacking in originality. True, the hosepipe party had a stirring climax when the pretty hostess appeared in a silk bathing suit and allowed herself to be ducked by her admirers in her own bath tub; still dear, I shouldn't care for that sort of a sensation."
"I think I'd draw the line at that myself. I promise you something better."
"Of course that bathing-suit luncheon at Newport last summer was a stunning affair. The women certainly made a hit. But I can't quite figure my wife appearing in it."
"I promise you faithfully not to appear in a bathing suit."
"Just one more pet aversion, dear," Bivens smiled. "You won't have any kind of an animal party, will you?"
"There'll be many kinds of animals present if they could only be accurately catalogued."
"I mean, particularly, monkeys. You know that monkey party got on my nerves. I mix with bulls and bears every day down in Wall Street. And all sorts of reptiles crawl among those big buildings--but when I had to shake hands with that monkey dressed in immaculate evening clothes sitting at a table sipping champagne, I thought they were pushing family history a little too far. Maybe our ancestors were monkeys all right, but the less said about it the better."
"Then good luck, and remember the sky's the limit."
Bivens waved her a kiss, hurried to his office and concluded a deal for floating five millions in common stock, which cost exactly the paper on which it was printed. His share of this loot would pay more than his wife could spend in a year.
Nan spared no expenditure of time, money and thought to the perfection of her plans. She employed a corps of trained artists, took them to her home, told them what she wished and they worked with enthusiasm to eclipse in splendour New York's record of lavish entertainments--but always with the reservation which she had imposed that nothing be done that might violate the canons of beauty and good taste.