“That’s what it would be, if I married,” she retorted, her voice again carrying high lights. “A girl stands to lose everything by an early marriage—her looks, her youth, and her fun! Can you imagine me with the yowl of a baby for my only excitement? It’s not a bit like you to take this stand!”
Joy stole a look at Jerry, but her face was wreathed in smoke as she answered in lazy tones: “Well, come off the platform, old dear. I was only heaving a couple of sobs for Greg—that boy has a few brains that weren’t put in cold storage at Yale. Of course, I’m glad you’re still on my side of the wall. Came around to make you shove aside anything you’ve started going for to-night and tack yourself on to a dizzy party.”
“I have a date for to-night, but he’s not a new man,” she ruminated. “Is it a good party?”
“I said, dizzy! A bunch of Williams men—they’ve cornered the world’s best jazz-fiends to beat a nasty measure—down at Croft Inn. Private party—we’ll have the whole place to ourselves. There are one or two other girls coming, some subdebs from Boston who are going to climb the waterspout or something, but they told me to get another girl. Like the noise of it?”
“I should say so! I was only going in town to dance with him alone. Give me a crowd every time! What’ll you wear?”
“Evening dress stuff, they say, which means the girls will and the men won’t.” She threw her cigarette stub at the wastebasket, and after a few waverings which Félicie watched tensely, it went in. “Well—we’ve got to go along. We’ll be around for you to-night, some time. Be ready!”
“Good-bye, Miss Durant,” said Joy, taking a last comprehensive look at the massed loveliness before her. She half wished that she were going that night. To see it drawn up in battle array!
“We must have a movie date some time,” Félicie smiled, but her smile was changed to a shriek as she followed them down the hall. “You didn’t close the door, and he got out! Oh, Fizz!”
She captured him in the lower entry and held him carefully away from the lace of her dress, his red tongue dangling, his little eyes peering pinkly from beneath his drying bangs, as she again speeded them on their way.
“Well, what did you think of the human jellyfish?” Jerry asked, as they made for their regular “taxi,” a Subway prepayment car.