Miss Prokes yawned as she waited and regarded a brilliantly illuminated display window of curve-fingered ladies in exquisite waxen attitudes and nineteen-fifty crêpe-de-Chine gowns. Her breath clouded the plate-glass, and she drew her initials in the circle and yawned again.
With the last driblet of employees from the store a woman cut diagonally through a group and hurried toward Miss Prokes.
"Come on, Tillie!"
"Gee! I was afraid you wouldn't have a umbrella, Angie. What made you so late? The rest of the corsets have gone long ago."
"Oh, I just stopped a minute to take a milk-and- rose-leaves bath—they're doin' it in our best families this year."
Tillie glanced at her companion sharply.
"What's the matter, Angie? You ain't had one of your spells again, have you? Your voice sounds so full of breath and all."
Angie pushed a strand of black-and-white hair up under her nest-like hat. Her small, black eyes were too far back; and her face was slightly creased and yellow, like an old college diploma when it is fished out of the trunk to show the grandchildren.
"I just keeled over like a tenpin—that's all! It came on so sudden—while I was sellin' a dame a dollar-ninety-eight hipless—that even old Higgs was scared and went up to the emergency-room with me hisself."
"Oh, Angie—ain't that a shame, now!"