Unnamed Guests at Belle's Recital

"The group of Belle's more intimate familiars" who attend Little Belle's recital in Flags in the Dust seem a bit older than the young set that gathers at the Mitchells' tennis court (198), but the narrator does not characterize them with any more sympathy. The group is dominated by the voices of the "ladies," "sibilantly crescendic," "an hysterical tideflux" (198). The "occasional soberly clad male" remains at the periphery of this "chattering" (198) and "gabbling" (202).