I grew nervous.
“It came with the apartment.”
“Get rid of it, dear, at once. I can send you up one from the library. Harry’s going to give me a new Aubusson.”
I became more nervous and faltered:
“But I ought to keep this.”
“Why? Is there a clause in your lease that you’ve got to use it?”
When Betty gets me against the wall this way I become frightened. Timid animals, thus cornered, are seized with the courage of despair and fly at their assailant. Timid human beings show much less spirit—I always think animals behave with more dignity than people—they tell lies.
“But—but—I like it,” I stammered.
“Oh,” said Betty with a falling note, “if that’s the case—” She stopped and rose to her feet, too polite to say what she thought. “Put on your things and come out with me. I’m shopping, and afterward we’ll lunch somewhere.”
I went out with Betty in the car, a limousine with two men and a chow dog. We went to shops where obsequious salesladies listened to Mrs. Ferguson’s needs and sought to satisfy them. They had a conciliating way of turning to me and asking my opinion which, such is the poverty of my spirit, pleased me greatly. I get a faint reflex feeling of what it is to be the wife of one of New York’s rising men. Then we lunched richly and clambered back into the limousine, each dropping languidly into her corner while the footman tucked us in.