"Please don't bother me again."
And flirting the fabulous bill before the eyes of the landlady, she nonchalantly let it flutter from the tips of her disdainful fingers.
Miss Pim, who liked to inspire terror, was so completely nonplused that, though her lips worked spasmodically, she found nothing to say. She took the bill furiously, and went out. A moment later Josephus appeared with the change in an envelope. The Salamanders were still in gales of laughter over the discomfiture of their common enemy.
Dodo, left alone, dressed in a simple dress of dull black, relieved by a lace edging at the throat and sleeves, and a tailor hat with the invariable splash of a red feather; for she made it a superstition never to be without a little red flutter of audacity and daring. Then she zealously applied the powder, to give a touch of ailing melancholy to her young cheeks—it would never do to appear before Mr. Peavey in too healthy a manifestation. In general, it must be noted that no Salamander is ever in perfect health. There is always lurking in the background a melancholy but most serviceable ailment that not only does for a thousand excuses, but encourages concrete evidences of masculine sympathy.
Her costume finished, she exercised her prevaricatory talents at the telephone, soothing irate admirers, who had clamored ineffectually for her the evening before, with plausible tales which, if they did not entirely believe, they ended by weakly accepting, which amounted to the same thing.
At noon, according to orders, Joseph Gilday, Junior, arrived with a carefully simulated hang-dog look. He was a wiry, sharp-eyed, jingling little fellow, just twenty, already imbued with the lawyer's mocking smile, on the verge of being a man of the world, eager to arrive there, but not quite emancipated. For the last month in this growing phase Doré had found the lines of discipline difficult to maintain. She even foresaw the time when it would be impossible. He had to be handled carefully.
"Hello, Dodo," said Gilday in a hollow tone of misery, dragging his cane into the room and fastening humble eyes on his yellow spats.
"Good morning," said Doré frigidly, for she perceived his maneuver was to force a laugh.
"Thunderation! what is it?" said Gilday, lifting his head and perceiving for the first time the floral display on the trunk tops, the bureaus and the mantelpieces. "I say, is this your October birthday?"