Aunt Belle sniffed. “Men old enough to be her father––you’d think they would appreciate mellowed love instead of a selfish little chicken.”
The beauty doctor, who had spent the greater share of the day at the Constantine house, suppressed a smile and stored up the remark for her next customer.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Beatrice murmured as she consulted a hand glass. “I am beginning to wish I had married a man about papa’s age. It would have been much jollier in some ways. Steve is so strenuous and rude. A cave man is fun to be engaged to and keep a record about in your chapbook––but when you marry him it is a different matter. I remember how thrilled and enthusiastic about Steve I used to be when he was working for papa and living in a hall bedroom. I knew he adored me yet had to keep his place, and I used to dream about him and wonder if he really would keep his word and make a fortune so he could marry me. But now he has done it–––” She shrugged her shoulders.
“I wouldn’t be too disappointed. Elderly men usually have wheel chairs and diets after a little, and you’d feel it your duty to play nurse.”
“Oh, it’s far better to be disappointed in one’s husband than one’s friends,” Beatrice agreed. “I know that. For you can manage to see very little 149 of your husband; but your friends––deary me, they your very existence.”
“Does Trudy ever mention the days she worked in Steve’s office?”
“Yes. Clever little thing, she knows enough to admit it prettily every now and then, so there is nothing to badger her about. She has even trained Gay to talk of it occasionally. She has done wonders for him; one of the clubmen is backing him to go into the interior-decorating business. Of course he will make good because everyone will feel morally obliged to go there. So the Vondeplosshes on the strength of this have moved to the Touraine, a different sort of apartment house, I assure you. They are entertaining, if you please; everyone asks them everywhere. Gay is painting garlands of old-fashioned flowers in panels for Jill’s boudoir. I think I’ll have the same thing done in mine.”
“Gay is painting them?”
“Oh, no. Some limp artist who could never get the commission for himself. Gay stands about in a natty blue-serge effect and takes the credit and the check. What’s new?”––turning to the beauty doctor. “I’m as dull as the Dead Sea.”
Miss Flinks informed them of a labour revolt in the West.