"What!" exclaimed Winona.
"Much more. I work!"
Saying which, she flung into her jacket like a schoolboy, and went out without further adieus.
"Pleasant creature!" said Winona acidly.
"It's you who are wrong," said Doré warmly. "Why patronize her?"
"There is a difference between us, I think," said Winona coldly. "Really, Dodo, I don't understand how you can—"
"Let Snyder alone," said Doré, with a flash of anger. "No harm comes from being decent to some one who's down. Don't be so hard—you never know what may happen to you!" Seeing the flush on Winona's face, she softened her tone and, her habitual good humor returning, added: "If you knew her struggle— There! Let's drop it!"
Fortunately, the telephone broke in on the tension. Another followed, even before she had left the anteroom. The first was an invitation from Roderigo Sanderson, one of Broadway's favorite leading men, to a dress rehearsal of a new comic opera that promised to be the rage of the season. While secretly delighted at the prospect, Doré answered, in a tone of subdued suffering, that she was in bed with a frightful head-ache—that, though it seemed to be improving, she couldn't tell how she would feel later, and adjourned a decision until six, at which hour he was to telephone. She gave the same reply to the second invitation, a proposition from Donald Bacon, a broker, who was organizing a party for a cabaret dance later in the evening.
"Hurray! Now I can have a choice," she said, tripping gaily back and pirouetting twice on her left foot. Suddenly she stopped, folding her arms savagely.
"Winona!"