“Tomorrow,” he said, bending again over her hand.
“Yes, tomorrow.”
He went out without again speaking to Ruth, who waited breathless until she heard the closing of the outer door. Gloria watched him disappear, and then lifted her arms high above her head, stretching her superb body up to its full length like a great Persian cat just waking from a nap.
“What are you doing up at this hour, Ruth?” She spoke as if seeing Ruth for the first time.
“I went to the theatre with Terry, you know, and then we went to supper afterward and I came in fifteen minutes ago. I’m not a bit tired.”
“I am, horribly, of everything.”
“It’s only Prince Aglipogue who’s been boring you. No wonder you’re tired of him. If he’d only sing behind a curtain so that one didn’t have to look at him, he would be quite lovely,” said Ruth. She spoke thus with the intention of making Gloria tell what she really thought of the Prince. Gloria sank back on her chair by the piano and rested her chin on her folded hands, her elbows on her knees. Unlike most large women she seemed able to assume any attitude she chose without appearing ungraceful.
“You don’t like Aggie, do you?”
She was looking at Ruth now with something of her normal expression in her eyes.
“I don’t exactly dislike him,” said Ruth. “He’s all right as a singer or a pianist or a painter, but as a man he is singularly uninteresting, isn’t he?”