Trudy realized perfectly well that sweetness from the lips of an obese lady, after one has assured her of the arrival of a double chin, always augurs ill for everyone.
Originally Trudy had determined to use Gaylord as a stepping-stone, a rather satisfactory first husband. But since Beatrice’s commission to do the villa and the stream of like orders from the new-rich who were trying to unload their war fortunes before they were caught at it, Trudy had grown content and even keen about Gaylord in an impersonal sense. She felt that she could not better herself if he continued to do as well as he had the last few months, and that she would continue to do her share of hill-climbing indefinitely. In other words, having won Gaylord in the remnant department, Trudy decided to keep him and make him answer the purpose of paying her board bill.
Besides, though she admitted it only to Mary, she felt anything but well. The more money Gaylord made the more he spent on himself, and he seemed to expect Trudy to manage out of the ozone, 219 yet to appear as the indulged wife of her enterprising young husband. It never ended––the eternal searching for bargains; dyeing clothes and mending, cleaning, and pressing; living on delicatessen food; sitting up nights to help out with the work, often doing odds and ends of sewing, and appearing the next afternoon in the customer’s house to admire the effect of the new drapery and tell of the bright-eyed Italian woman who had done the work.
Trudy saw little of Mary. Her better self made her stay aloof lest she win from her friend other details to add to her already safeguarded secret. And she never attempted to amuse Steve. She fought shy of him when he was about, wisely limiting herself to shy nods and smiles and occasionally a very meek compliment, which he usually pretended not to hear.
As she walked home from the villa––Gay had the roadster––she told herself that she must watch out or Beatrice would attempt to spoil Gay to the extent of making him wish to be rid of his wife. She realized that Gay was extremely scornful and careless of her. Having married her and satisfied his one-cylinder brain that he was a deuce of a chap and a democratic rake in marrying this dashing nobody Gaylord turned bully and permitted Trudy to take the cares of the family on her shoulders. He was now enjoying the fruits of her industry with a fair credit rating, very different from formerly, a bank account of which Trudy knew nothing, and the congenial work of pussyfooting about boudoirs and guzzling tea while perched on Beatrice’s blue-satin gondolas.
He no longer needed Trudy. He could see now 220 that to be single-handed once more, but with his new standing and profession, would be a most satisfactory state of affairs. In fact, if Trudy would only fall in love with a travelling man and decamp––what a chap he would soon rise to be! For a broken heart is often a man’s strongest asset and a woman’s gravest suspicion. Trudy, however, gave him no hope in this direction. She hung about her fireplace contrary to her former plans concerning it. She really put in an eighteen-hour day as both slavey and sylph, and seemed filled with everlasting patience and jazz.
Coming into the Touraine apartment Trudy found Gaylord showing old prints to some woman customers and advising as to the smartness of having them framed and used in sun parlours or any intriguing little nook. Trudy was de trop––she was prettier than the prospective customers, but in their eyes she had only a Winter-Garden personality––and Gay frowned his welcome.
Had Trudy not come in Gay would have served cocktails of his own making, which would cause them to order the prints at fabulous prices; and then sat in the dusk talking about the occult and the popularity of Persian pussy cats and how to make pear-and-cottage-cheese salad and serve it on cabbage leaves, which was quite the mode. It never does for an interior decorator, particularly if specializing in boudoirs, to have a wife, Gaylord decided as his customers patronized Trudy and departed, Gaylord seeing them to their car and standing bareheaded to wave his bejewelled hand as they whirled round the corner.
He then returned to give Trudy his unbiassed opinion. 221 “I thought you were going to stay away until evening,” he said. “You spoiled the sale.”
“Did I? What were you about to do––play soul mate if they’d take the old things? I’m the one who found those prints in a second-hand store and had sense enough to buy the lot. I’m the one who found the remnants of cretonne you paste them on––and told you to charge ten dollars each––and I’m the one who sits out in the little back room and pastes them on, too!”