"What!"
"I—All right, I'm going."
She readjusted her hat, a tiny winged chariot of pink straw and designed after fashion's most epileptic caprice, coaxed her ringed fingers into a pair of but slightly soiled white gloves, her eyes the while staring past her slim reflection in the mirror and on to the mauve-colored swinging-door.
"Good night, Gert."
Miss Dobriner bared her teeth to a smile and closed her lips again before she spoke. "Good night—madam."
Then she went out, clicking the door behind her. Through the mauve-colored swinging-door and scarcely a clock-tick later entered Mr. Alphonse Michelson, spick, light-footed, slim.
"Charley's left with the black lace, madam."
It was as if Madam Moores suddenly threw off the husk of the day.
"Tired, Phonzie?"
He ran a hand across his silk hair and glanced about. "Everybody gone?"
"Yes."