The girl was more worth his attention––one of those New York examples, built on lean, rangy, thoroughbred lines––long limbed, small of hand and foot and head, with cinder-blond hair, greyish eyes, a sweet but too generous mouth, and several noticeable freckles.
Minute grooming and a sure taste gave her that ultra-smart appearance which does everything for a type that is less attractive in a dinner gown, and still less in negligée. And which, after marriage, usually lets a straight strand of hair sprawl across one ear.
But now, coiffeur, milliner, modiste, and her own maiden cleverness kept her immaculate––the true Gotham model found nowhere else.
They chatted of parties already past, where he had failed to materialise, and of parties to come, where 125 she hoped he would appear. And he said he would.
They chatted about their friends and the gossip concerning them.
Traffic on Fifth Avenue was rather worse than usual. The competent police did their best, but motors and omnibuses, packed solidly, moved only by short spurts before being checked again.
“It’s after one o’clock,” she said, glancing at her tiny platinum wrist-watch. “Here’s Delmonico’s, Jim. Shall we lunch together?”
He experienced a second’s odd hesitation, then: “Certainly,” he said. And she signalled the chauffeur.
The place was beginning to be crowded, but there was a table on the Fifth Avenue side.
As they crossed the crowded room toward it, women looked up at Elorn Sharrow, instantly aware that they saw perfection in hat, gown and fur, and a face and figure not to be mistaken for any imitation of the Gotham type.