“I don’t know. That woman there made me think of them—that creature they’re crowding round. Don’t you see that pasty-faced hag with the false hair and the real diamonds? That’s Miss Craven St. Clair.”
“Well, what has she to do with dogs?”
“Oh, she’s a leading lady. Plays those erotic parts.”
He looked at her a little surprised by the adjective, and still unenlightened.
“And what then?”
“Don’t you know all leading ladies keep dogs—to get extra paragraphs? I hope you hate leading ladies. I do. They’re so virtuous, and you know virtue is such a feeble vice. Nor has a dog, though she’s not a leading lady. But rather a led lady. L—E—D, you know.”
“Do you mean led by the dog?”
“Yes, whenever she’s blind and the dog is sly,” she said, mysteriously, adding quickly, “Nor’s dog isn’t all hers—it’s mine on alternate days. He’s such a snob, is Roy—he’ll never go out with her if she’s frumpy. He insists on swell dresses, dear old Roy.”
“Can she be frumpy?” he asked.
She flashed a quick look at him.