There had been a director’s party where throwing egg-nogs had been the chief sport, regardless of costumes; a hundred and one such incidents and new, distressing personalities kept recurring to Thurley as she stood there, quite sure she was tired of it all, of even her own deliciously decent and attractive way of spending her first earned dollars and making the most of blue eyes, curving scarlet lips and bright brown hair.
She remembered what Polly had told her regarding her future progress.
“There are three steps of becoming truly mundane. First, you buy things in a store. Next, you purchase articles in a shop. Lastly, you acquire treasures in an establishment!”
With a sense of disappointment at having nothing which she might anticipate, Thurley realized she had reached the last stage. Only yesterday she had “acquired” a tapestry treasure from a haughty “establishment,” the proprietor bowing her in and out with formal regard!
She leaned over a stone parapet, gazing at the fog, the occasional rain drops making her cheeks cool and refreshed, although Taffy crouched unwillingly beside her and wondered why this adorable but unreasonable mistress of his walked through mud when her car waited for her signal, to say nothing of his own self being hideously bespotted and, therefore, in line for odious bathing.
Some one jostled near her, looked at her sharply for a moment and then said in an alarmed tone,
“My dear little girl, what a risk on such a night! Not an hour before you’re due in your dressing-room—tell me, what is it?”
It was Bliss Hobart in an equally grotesque get-up, a checkered raincoat and hat winning him the title of Mackintosh of Mackintosh.
Thurley turned and held out her hands, the swagger stick falling with an unjust thump on Taffy’s long-suffering back.
“I’m so glad—I’m lonesome and queer. I need to be set right,” she protested so wistfully that Hobart kept holding on to her hands, the darkness keeping her from spying how tender an expression was in his eyes.