She left the studio, her spirits more dashed than a newly-engaged girl’s should have been over such a matter. The singer’s road was so long, so hard—so nerve-racking—She whiled away the trolley journey to the apartment in finding adjectives, none of which were sufficiently comprehensive. Yet, remembering the way her scales had soared—and the windows vibrated—the exultant sense of power that had been hers—the voices within her were more contented lately, she liked to fancy—Yes, music drew one on even while one despaired.
The apartment seemed changed. Had Jerry been house-cleaning in her absence? There was more furniture in the hall than usual, furniture that belonged in the reception room; and everything shone as if it had been newly scrubbed. Ordinarily, while the apartment was not really untidy, it bore an air of very light housekeeping. Joy poked her head inside the reception room, and dropped the suitcase at what she saw.
A strange woman sitting on the comfortable sofa—a woman with very blonde hair and a figure which would have been expansive if given a chance by her potent corsets. An earringed, bejewelled woman, with dark, hard hollows for eyes in a face whose pink and white layers gave her skin an ironed-out look which trembled into telltale wrinkles and creases in the neck. Jerry was standing before her—a changed Jerry in a bright, bizarre gown of some rough green silk which clung to her like a wet bathing-suit—her hair pulled back straight and confined by a ribbon of the same bright silk—jade earrings lilting from her ears. Her face was rouged; her lips a splotch of scarlet. She swayed lithely as Joy stared, spellbound, and was saying, in a silken, rustling voice which reminded Joy oddly of the dress she wore: “I am sure you will enjoy the little frock, Mrs. Bowman. Florence Fay was in Saturday, and I am creating one for her that is very similar.”
Joy felt her jaw dropping, and closed it with a click that made Jerry turn swiftly on the toes of the cream-coloured sandals she wore on her bare feet. “Mrs. Bowman” followed her glance, and lifted a jewelled lorgnette to stare at Joy. “One of your models, Madame?” she asked, in a voice as thick and flabby as her eyelids.
Jerry nodded languidly, with a swift, impinging wink at Joy.
“She’s just my colouring—better than the other,” the doughy voice went on. Joy reacted from the blow by staggering back a step and tripping over the suitcase. “I’d like to see her in some negligées—I’m looking for just the right kind and I must say it’s hard to suit me in them.”
“Let me see,” Jerry wafted her hand to her forehead. “You do not wish light colours, I take it.”
“You know I don’t.” The voice became stickily peevish, although the face did not alter its bland, open look. “My figure is impossible in light colors, you know that quite well.”
“Of course you are at your best in dark, which brings out your hair to a vividness,” Jerry murmured. “I have in mind something all made up, which is distinctly your negligée from the first moment one looks at it. But should I even show it to you?” Her hands interrogated, “Florence Fay saw it, and said she was almost sure she would want it for the bedroom scene in ‘Making a Night of It,’ her new fall vehicle.”
“Oh—h, I must see it!” Mrs. Bowman appealed, her neck working with emotion. “I must, Madame Géry!”