Joy laughed. “Sorry, Jerry, but I couldn’t. Don’t tempt me.”
“Well—you really ought to get out—it isn’t because we’ve got to have another girl that I wanted you. As it happens, there’s another available. Félicie Durant is back in town.”
Joy had heard Jerry and Sarah speak of Félicie Durant once or twice, and the name had left an impression, being about the only girl’s name they had ever taken the breath to mention.
“I’ll tell you what,” said Jerry; “you nail on your lid right now and we’ll wiggle over to Félicie’s. You’ve got to have some exercise, and there’s much more chance of my getting Félicie to go to-night by a personal interview than if I popped the project over the phone. Come on!”
Jerry was wearing a rumpled lavender linen dress of simple lines. She watched with an amused eye, as Joy changed into dark things for street wear.
“You certainly are getting Bostonian,” she jeered. “It’s balmy out if it is fall, and I for one am not going to stifle if other people are sporting advance-model velvet lids!” And crushing a saucy yellow straw down over her eyes without bothering to pat her hair into position on either side, an indispensable rite with most girls in the major operation of putting on a hat, she dragged Joy forth before Joy could add a veil and white kid gloves to her costume.
“This is no afternoon-tea call,” she said, hailing a Brighton-bound street car. “Félicie’s not that kind of a girl—not that she’s my kind, either, except the way that girl swallows excitement down whole would do credit to even my digestion.”
“What is she like?” Joy asked, as they joined the circle of strap-hanging women that crowded the street car full of doggedly sitting men.
“She’s a jellyfish,” replied Jerry, treading on the toes of the man in front of her who spread his newspaper as a defensive sheath between him and the women before him. “She’s got the spine and determination of a jellyfish. Lives out here with her old great-aunt or something——But wait till you see her.”
They disembarked over in Brighton where rows of apartment houses duplicated themselves, and rang the bell at one of faded yellow brick. The door swung open, and Joy followed Jerry to the right on the first floor, where an open door awaited them.