CHAPTER VIII
The things we are ashamed of are an acid test of our souls. Kedzie Thropp was constantly improving the quality of her disgusts.
A few months ago she was hardly ashamed of sleeping under a park bench. And already here she was sliding through the street in a limousine. It was a shabby limousine, but she was not yet ready to be ashamed of any limousine. She was proud to have it lent to her, proud to know anybody who owned such a thing.
What she was ashamed of now was the home it must take her to and the jobless husband waiting for her there. She was ashamed of herself for tying up with a husband so soon. She had married in haste and repented in haste. And there was a lot of leisure for more repentance.
Already her husband was such a handicap that she had refrained from mentioning his existence to the great moving-picture director who had opened a new world of glory to her—thrown on a screen, as it were, a cinemation of her future, where triumphs followed one another with moving-picture rapidity. He had made a scenario of her and invited her to dinner.
She smiled a little at the inspiration that had saved her from confessing that she was Mrs. Gilfoyle. It was neat of her to tell Mr. Ferriday that she could be addressed “in care of Mrs. Gilfoyle.” In care of herself! That was just what she was. Who else was so interested in Kedzie's advancement as Kedzie?
She was a bitterly disappointed Kedzie just now. Ferriday had told her to go to Lady Powell-Carewe and get herself a bevy of specially designed gowns at the expense of the firm. There was hardly a woman alive who would not have rejoiced at such a mission. To Kedzie, who had never had a gown made by anything higher than a sewing-woman, the privilege was heavenly. Also, she had never met a Lady with a capital L.
The dual strain might have been the death of her, but she was saved by the absence of Lady Powell-Carewe. Kedzie went back to the street, sick with deferred hope. Ferriday's chauffeur was waiting to take her home. She felt grateful for the thoughtfulness of Ferriday and crept in.
The nearer Kedzie came to her lowly highly flat the less she wanted even the chauffeur of Mr. Ferriday's limousine to see her enter it. He would come for her again at night, but the building did not look so bad at night.