Mother saw her hurrying through the dish-washing and knew why.
“Joan, I do wish you would be like other girls,” she complained, “and sit down once in a while with a bit of embroidery, instead of traipsing around after Tim.”
“Girls don’t do that any more, Mother, unless they’re going to take up embroidery as a career,” Joan laughed. “And I’m not. I’m going to be a reporter like Miss Betty and I have to learn all I can about the job, to be ready. There’s a girl in my class who’s going to be an architect. She’s taking lessons, already. Her father’s one, and he’s teaching her.”
Tim was scowling and talking to Miss Betty when Joan reached the Journal office. “The chief’s on his ear about that King girl’s picture,” he said. “I’ve been to every studio in town, and I can’t get it. And I’m afraid the Star will come out with it.”
“Gosh!” ejaculated Miss Betty. “Municipal court judges would stay bachelors, if they knew how much trouble their modest, retiring brides-to-be made us.”
“Isn’t there any way to get it?” Joan appealed to Miss Betty.
“I don’t know,” the society editor answered, as her fingers pounded out write-ups of social functions. “I don’t believe Tim can get that picture anyway, short of going over to the King home and snatching it off the mantel.”
“Oh, is there one on their mantel?”
Miss Betty laughed at her eagerness. “There is. I saw it with my own two eyes when I went there to cover the announcement tea last week. The tea table was right in front of the fireplace, so that’s where I parked, having had no lunch that day, and the caterer behind the table mistaking me for one of Plainfield’s sub-debs. That’s how I happened to notice the picture. I was tempted to grab it then.”
Miss Betty was joking, most likely, but Joan noticed that Chub was listening, intently, too.