Mrs. Millidew the elder, arrayed in many colours, was telling Mrs. Smith-Parvis about a new masseuse she had discovered, and Mrs. Smith-Parvis was talking freely at the same time about a person named Juneo.
Miss Emsdale had drifted over toward the broad show window looking out upon the cross-town street, where Thomas Trotter was visible,—out of the corner of her eye. Also the younger Mrs. Millidew.
Stuyvesant, sullenly smoking a cigarette, lolled against a show-case across the room, dropping ashes every minute or two into the mouth of a fragile and, for the time being, priceless vase that happened to be conveniently located near his elbow.
Mr. Moody adjusted his monocle and eyed his matronly visitors in a most unfeeling way.
"Ah,—good awfternoon, Mrs. Millidew. Good awfternoon, Mrs. Smith-Parvis," he said, and then catching sight of an apparently neglected customer in the offing, beckoned to a smart looking salesman, and said, quite loudly:
"See what that young man wants, Proctor."
The young man, who happened to be young Mr. Smith-Parvis, started violently,—and glared.
"Stupid blight-ah!" he said, also quite loudly, and disgustedly chucked his cigarette into the vase, whereupon the salesman, in some horror, grabbed it up and dumped the contents upon the floor.
"You shouldn't do that, you know," he said, in a moment of righteous forgetfulness. "That's a peach-blow—"
"Oh, is it?" snapped Stuyvesant, and walked away.