“And a new set of principals,” said the red-headed Babe. “Did you ever see such a bunch?”
The duchess, with another tired sigh, arched her well-shaped eyebrows and studied the effect in the mirror.
“One wonders where they pick these persons up,” she assented languidly. “They remind me of a headline I saw in the paper this morning—‘Tons of Hams Unfit for Human Consumption.’ Are any of you girls coming my way? I can give two or three of you a lift in my limousine.”
“Thorry, old dear, and thanks ever so much,” said the cherub, “but I instructed Clarence, my man, to have the street-car waiting on the corner, and he’ll be tho upset if I’m not there.”
Nelly had an engagement to go and help one of the other girls buy a Spring suit, a solemn rite which it is impossible to conduct by oneself: and Jill and the cherub walked to the corner together. Jill had become very fond of the little thing since rehearsals began. She reminded her of a London sparrow. She was so small and perky and so absurdly able to take care of herself.
“Limouthine!” snorted the cherub. The duchess’ concluding speech evidently still rankled. “She gives me a pain in the gizthard!”
“Hasn’t she got a limousine?” asked Jill.
“Of course she hasn’t. She’s engaged to be married to a demonstrator in the Speedwell Auto Company, and he thneaks off when he can get away and gives her joy-rides. That’s all the limousine she’s got. It beats me why girls in the show business are alwayth tho crazy to make themselves out vamps with a dozen millionaires on a string. If Mae wouldn’t four-flush and act like the Belle of the Moulin Rouge, she’d be the nithest girl you ever met. She’s mad about the fellow she’s engaged to, and wouldn’t look at all the millionaires in New York if you brought ’em to her on a tray. She’s going to marry him as thoon as he’s thaved enough to buy the furniture, and then she’ll thettle down in Harlem thomewhere and cook and mind the baby and regularly be one of the lower middle classes. All that’s wrong with Mae ith that she’s read Gingery Stories and thinkth that’s the way a girl has to act when she’th in the chorus.”
“That’s funny,” said Jill. “I should never have thought it. I swallowed the limousine whole.”
The cherub looked at her curiously. Jill puzzled her. Jill had, indeed, been the subject of much private speculation among her colleagues.