And Jerome amazed everybody by turning, even as he acknowledged the sober salutation, and winking broadly at the singers who stood looking on with an edge of amusement. The wink seemed to warn them they would have to be guarded from now on if they were to have fun at his expense.
Jerome was making progress.
II
Lili didn’t appear at breakfast. Jerome hated to ask about her, but at length did; and they told him, without quite the old satirical respect, that she was lying low. It even got to Lili that her friend had been enquiring after her; and she sat up in her bunk and romantically scribbled him a few lines on a bit of wrapping paper torn off a package containing a new eleventh hour corset.
“Hello, old dear!” she scrawled. “How’s every little thing? It’s a gay life if you don’t weaken! I haven’t—I’m only taking a long beauty sleep, and if it gets calmer I’ll meet you on deck tonight.”
Jerome was quite excited over the note. He had never received a note like this before. While they were still engaged, Stella had written him three or four letters from Los Gatos, where she had gone on a trip in the summer; but these letters had differed acutely from the note just received from Lili. There was something about Lili’s note, with its vague department store aroma, that made Jerome tingle excitedly. He was very sure none of the clerks he knew in Market street had ever received such a note.
There was no moon, but the stars were rich and wonderful. She had dragged up blankets from her bunk, and sat snug in them on deck—a trifle subdued, perhaps, by the mighty sway of the sea, though she beamed almost as dazzlingly as ever, her eyes opening wider and wider in the starlight till the poor clerk was nearly beside himself.
She asked him if he didn’t want part of her blankets, and he said, very earnestly, oh no, he wasn’t cold. “But you haven’t any overcoat.” No, that was true—because he hadn’t worn one to Girardin’s. Everything seemed to date back to Girardin’s. “Say,” he demanded, “has it seemed long since that night?”
“Has it seemed long!” she exclaimed. “My Gawd!”