Jerry shrugged her shoulders, a quick, theatrical gesture that threw her gown into all sorts of new ripples and cadences. “Well, possibly there is no harm in showing it to you,” she conceded. “Pardon me for one swift moment—” and she curved out into the hall, gathering Joy after her. “Joy,” she whispered, a goblin grin disturbing her blobby lips, “Joy—do you mind going and putting on that purple negligée Packy and Twink sent, and coming back here to show her how she won’t look? Sorry, but you peeked yourself into this!”
Joy went back to Jerry’s room fighting a wild desire to laugh hysterically and completely. Would there ever be an end to the surprises of this apartment? Sarah was sitting on the bed, hugging a decidedly cross expression. A large, creamy pasteboard box which she had evidently just done up, judging from the papers and string scattered about the room, was lying beside her.
“Will you please tell me,” said Joy, “how long since Jerry has turned modiste?”
“Oh, you’re back,” said Sarah brilliantly. “Have a good time? Is that sunburn or rouge?”
Joy went to the closet for the negligée without replying. “That” was nothing more or less than a hectic flush which had been on her ever since Grant had left her on the train that morning. The ecstatic distress of their first parting had keyed her up to almost fever pitch. Her pulses had been pounding, her blood had mounted to her face, and even the coldwater spray of that singing lesson had not succeeded in bringing her back to normal. Her lips parted now in dramatic recollection, as she slipped into the gorgeous purple brocade of Twink’s settlement. It was beyond belief that there could be such rapture—
“I thought Jerry’d better play that off, too,” said Sarah. “She’s never worn it, and she ought to be able to stick old Mrs. Messy in deep for it.”
Joy snapped the clasp that held the thing together, and went down the hall again. It was a wonderful negligée—it would make even “Mrs. Messy” look like a fresh young twig of a girl. For although not yet a gnarled old bough, one might call her considerable of a branch. How did models walk? She took her cue from Jerry’s modulated ambulations, and swayed into the reception room. “Mrs. Messy’s” lorgnette surveyed her.
“That negligée,” the voice soughed, “is mine. I have to have it. I couldn’t even consider anything else—after seeing it.”
Jerry’s hands fluttered. “But, my dear Mrs. Bowman, Florence Fay——”
“I tell you I must have it! I’ll pay you twice as much as she would!”