"—seven—eight—nine—ten!" chanted Felicity joyously. "And out! What did she do?"
And then, quite without any warning at all, came the break. It was like the shattering of brittle glass.
Cecille rocked to crazy mirth.
"She had them put me out!" she shouted. "She called the matron and had her put me out! She said the language I'd used before her was positively vicious. She said I'd—contaminate—those—worthy—working girls!"
And it took Felicity almost three-quarters of an hour to bring her round. In one brief interval of calm she managed to slip to the telephone and call a taxi. The rest of the time she spent on her knees beside the girl in the chair crooning softly. And she never knew that most of the words she set to her soothing, extemporaneous tune would have contaminated anybody, most of all Mrs. Schuyler Driggs herself.
At eleven-thirty, when Cecille was crying comfortably, she rose. And seeing that her work was well done, she became brisk.
"I'll get a bawling out from Fiegenspann," she said, and ran to a window. "Thank God, that taxi's here. And now you'd better get to bed. Maybe hereafter you'll know better than to mix it with somebody outa your class. You oughta known in the first place that perfect ladies have got it all over girls like us, before we start. They've got everything fixed, the judges and the referee, before you step into the ring."
She ran out—and flashed back.
"Don't get me wrong, Cele." For one reason or another she hurried it. "I ain't got time to explain just what I meant to say, but there's one thing I didn't mean. Don't get me wrong. If you ain't a lady, then I'm the Prince of Wales."
That was the second time Cecille heard it.