Indeed, after having left Mrs. Carey and boarding a cross-town car at Eighth Street, Clancy wondered that Mrs. Carey did not give the impression of complete happiness. She was famous, rich, sought-after, yet she seemed, to Clancy, dissatisfied. Probably, thought Clancy, some trouble with her husband. Surely it must be the fault of Mr. Carey, for no woman so sweet and generous as Sophie Carey could possibly be at fault.
For a moment, she had been indignant at Mrs. Carey's charge of jealousy. But the one salient characteristic of Clancy Deane was honesty. It was a characteristic that would bring to her unhappiness and happiness both. Just now, that honesty hurt her pride. For she had felt a certain restlessness, uneasiness, that had been indefinable until Mrs. Carey had named it. It had been jealousy. She had resented that this rich, beautiful, and famous woman should assume a slightly proprietary air toward David Randall. Clairvoyantly, Clancy knew that she would never really love Sophie Carey. Still, she would try to.
At Astor Place, she took the subway, riding, according to instructions that Mrs. Carey had given her, to the Grand Central Station. Here she alighted and, a block west, turned up Madison Avenue.
If it had not occurred to her before that one found one's way about most easily in New York, she would have learned it now. With its avenues running north and south, and its cross-streets running east and west, and with practically all of both, save in the far-down-town district, numbered, it was almost impossible for any one who could read Arabic numerals to become lost in this, the greatest city of the Western hemisphere.
She found the establishment of "Sally Henderson, Interior Decorator—Apartments," a few doors east of Madison Avenue.
A young gentleman, soft-voiced, cow-eyed, moved gracefully forward to greet her. The cut of his sleeves, as narrow as a woman's, and fitting at the shoulder with the same pucker, the appearance of the waist-line as snug as her own, made Clancy realize that the art of dressing men has reappeared in the world as pronouncedly as in the days when they wore gorgeous laces and silken breeches, and bejeweled-buckled shoes.
The young gentleman—Clancy later learned that he was named Guernsey, and pronounced it "Garnsey"—ushered her into an inner office. This room was furnished less primly than the outer office. The first room she had entered seemed, with its filing-cases and busy stenographer pounding away at a typewriter and its adding machine and maps upon the wall, a place of business. But this inner room seemed like a boudoir. Clancy discovered that the outer room was where persons who desired to rent apartments were taken care of; this inner room was the spot where those desirous of the services of an interior decorator were received.
Miss Sally Henderson sat at a table upon which were samples of wall-paper. She was tall, Clancy could tell, had what in Zenith would be termed a "skinny" figure, and her hair, of a stringy mud-color, was almost plastered, man-fashion, upon a narrow, high forehead. Upon her nose were perched a pair of glasses. Her lips, surprisingly, were well-formed, full, and red. It was the mouth of a sensuous, beauty-loving, passionate woman, and the rest of her was the masculinity of an old maid.
She smiled as Clancy approached.
"So Sophie sent you to my matrimonial bureau, eh?" she said. Clancy stared. "Oh, yes," Miss Henderson went on; "three girls have been married from this business in the last eight months. I think there's a curse on the place. Tell me—are you engaged, in love, or anything?" Clancy shook her head. "That's too bad," sighed Miss Henderson.