“We owe for all but the left back tire,” Trudy said before any one had the chance to hint of the fact; “but Gay has to have it for his new business, and it is such a joy! I hope you approve, Beatrice. And what a darling gown!”
There was nothing left for Beatrice but to order the cocktails and toast, and for Aunt Belle to agree smilingly with Trudy’s clever suggestions.
Trudy never came to see Beatrice unless she gained some material point or had one in view, and the point she had come to gain this afternoon was of no small importance. In her own fashion she managed to inform her hostess that Gay had received an order from––well, it was a tremendous secret and he would be terribly cross if he knew she told even her dearest 152 Bea and her sweet Aunt Belle, but she just couldn’t help it––he had an order from Alice Twill, who thought she was going to beat everyone in town to the greatest sensation of the year: To have the barn of a Twill mansion remodelled, decorated and so on, from coal bin to cupola, until it was an exact copy of a French palace––she really forgot just which one. ... Yes, Alice’s aunt in Australia had died and left her everything; Alice said she was not going to wait until she was on crutches before she spent it. Gay was simply out of his head trying to plan the thing and Alice was to move to a hotel for several weeks until a newly furnished wing was ready to be inhabited.
There was no reason why New York persons should have their homes like palaces and châteaux and so on, and turn their noses up at upstate residences. Alice was going to show them. And––this very subtly––Gay had said that if only Beatrice could have the authority to redecorate her father’s home into an Italian villa Alice Twill would be the loser when comparisons were made––since the Constantine house had twice the possibilities and so on, and Beatrice twice the taste. And what an achievement it would be; a distinct civic improvement!... Yes, Gay was working with the best firms in New York, and there was no doubt of his success in the enterprise.
Before she left, Trudy had almost secured Beatrice’s promise that the Constantine house should be made into an Italian villa and that, if she so decided, Gay should have the commission. There was a place at Frascati she had always admired, and they could use some ideas from a show place in Florida.
Had Trafalgar terminated differently Napoleon would have been no more surprised or jubilant than Trudy, who fairly skidded home to the new and more pretentious apartment, where she found Gay in one of his sneering, sulky moods and quite angry to think Trudy was carrying the day.
“How do I know Alice Twill will really come across?” he began. “And I suppose you’ve got the machine covered with mud, too. Anyway, what do I know about decorating? I work on my reputation and everyone’s sympathies and I’m in fear all the time some real decorator will turn up and show my hand or else refuse to work under me and split commissions. You’re too damned optimistic.”
“If I wasn’t optimistic where would we be? Starving,” she said with no attempt at politeness. Common courtesies between them had long since been dispensed with. “I’ve gotten you nearly everything you have, and if you’ll do as I say I’ll go right on getting things for you. But you’re lazy and jealous––that’s what’s the matter.”
He gave a sneering little laugh. “Why, you poor nobody, people only tolerate you because of me. They roar behind your back.”