Jerry stood up on the taxi, struggling with herself. “I am nothing if not artistic,” she said; “and if I’m to be a mining-camp-varnished-with-dollars-product, I shall look the part.”
“That’s one of your best points, Jerry,” approved Steve. “You do a thing up right.”
She sat down again, barely in time before they drew up at the Astor and poured forth. Joy caught her breath in an abortive laugh, as they solemnly filed through the luxurious lobby, Jerry leading as usual. In a few swift touches, Jerry had changed herself from the breezy mondaine upon whom everything naturally looked right and leads to the harmony of that elusive completeness that is style, to the woman who, with obvious’ means and as obvious a wish to look well, pathetically falls just short of the mark. Her skirt sagged, ever so little, but still condemning enough; the buttons on the coat of her duveteen suit were fitted loosely in the wrong buttonholes; her hat was tilted back ingenuously, revealing a wide expanse of forehead, and she had pinned her hair in here and there so that the remains of its bobbed audacity had the appearance of little ends that had messily strayed from their moorings. Her gloves were partly unbuttoned, and one flapped as she walked. Even her walk had changed—it was a businesslike stride, with “getting-there” written all over her hastening back.
“Not a girl in a hundred would show she could look like that,” said Steve, in critical approval, as he kept pace with Joy in behind. “No wonder Jerry’s an institution that never fails.”
As they reached the roof Harry pulled out his cigar, a huge black affair that he stuck in his mouth at an angle of forty-five degrees. With cunning eye he marked out the head waiter and bore down upon him, thumbs in his waist-coat pocket, twirling his fingers. “We want the best table in the place,” he said, speaking through the cigar, at which the waiter tried not to look. “No expense shall be spared!”
He swaggered as the waiter hastily led them to a corner table. Joy was about to sink down, conscious that forks were being suspended in midair all about them, when Jerry put in a word.
“I don’t like this table, Bill,” she said querulously. “I want to be out in the middle where I can see everything that goes on, I do.”
“Waiter, did you hear my wife? What my wife says goes! Nothing’s too good for her!” Harry turned fiercely upon the waiter, jerking his cigar up and down in time to his words. The head waiter, all apologies, conducted them to a more centrally located table, and beckoned to a lesser menial, who helped install them. Jerry gave a bereft wail.
“Where’s the flowers! We haven’t got no flowers! Look, Bill, at that table there they got flowers!”
Her fingers pointed firmly to an adjoining table, all eyes of which were already fixed upon them with that passionate interest that only Americans display in the affairs of others.