"Between Alice and myself."
Jerome fingered the ticket as if he were about to say something, didn't, and slipped it into his pocket.
"But please don't forget that some one has to be responsible for me. With Tony I guess I shall be safe, but with that Poloff person there is danger. I never know when the end of one of those classical selections has arrived and I may disgrace you by clapping at the wrong place."
"Never fear. I'll see that no harm comes nigh thee."
"See to it better than you did at the tea," Jerome shot back from the doorway as he left.
On Friday, Jean did not go to the office at all. Gerte had left some alterations on her dress until the last moment, and all afternoon an excitable French seamstress buzzed about the house like a gnat, getting in every one's way, calling incessantly on Le Bon Dieu for needles of the right size, her thimble, for Madamoiselle. Catherine, maddeningly calm in any confusion caused by others, went quietly about, saying bitter, sarcastic things in a gentle voice, and only the realization that this evening was something of a trial for Catherine prevented them from retaliating in kind.
Not until the pickup supper was over, and the French gnat gone, did peace descend. Then, stretched on the couch before the open window of her attic, Jean looked up into the soft spring dusk and let its peace wrap her. The little stars still twinkled with some of the crisp, business-like twinkle of winter, but spring had already come. Down in the narrow streets it was warm. Soon summer would be there. In a short while, a few weeks at most, the house would be empty and still as it was now. The others would be gone on their summer vacations. Jean felt that she would like the house, alone in the silence.
There was barely time to dress when Jean at last jumped up and turned on the light. It was three years since Jean had worn an evening dress and that had been a very simple affair compared to this. Nan had insisted on the lowest possible neck and not the vestige of a sleeve. As Jean hurried into the filmy chiffon, the intricacies of its hooking amused her.
"I feel exactly as if I were a puzzle putting myself together."
She was preening anxiously before the glass, making sure that she had solved the puzzle correctly, when, without waiting for an answer to her knock, Catherine hurried in.