Charity ran on: “After dinner the Bud goes to the theater and sees a pantomime and a series of ballets, dolls of the nations—Chinese, Polish, also nursery characters. You could select something in one of those dances, perhaps.
“And last of all there is a chimney-sweeps' dance as the worn-out Bud crawls into bed. If none of these suit you we'd be glad to have any suggestion that occurs to you. Of course, a girl of to-day does a thousand more things than I've mentioned. But the main thing is, we want you to help us out.
“You are—if you'll forgive me for slapping you in the face with a bouquet—you are exquisitely beautiful and I know that you dance exquisitely.”
“How do you know that?” Kedzie asked, rashly.
“I saw you once as a—” Charity paused, seeing the red run across Kedzie's face. She had stumbled into Kedzie's past again, and Kedzie's resentment braced her hurt pride.
Charity tried to mend matters by a little advice: “You mustn't blush, my dear Mrs. Dyckman. If I were in your place I'd go around bragging about it. To have been a Greek dancer, what a beautiful past!”
“Thanks!” said Kedzie, curtly, with basilisk eyes. “I think I'd rather not dance any more. I'm an old married woman now. If you don't mind, I'll be one of the customers at your shop. I'll come in in the rippingest gown Jim can buy. I'll feel more comfortable, too, under your protection, Mrs. Cheever.”
Jim laughed and Kedzie grinned. But she was canny. She was thinking that she would be safest among that pack of wolves if she relied on her money to buy something dazzling rather than on the beauty that Charity alleged. She did not want to dance before those people again. She would never forget how her foot had slipped at Newport.
Thirdly, she felt that she would be sheltered a little from persecution beneath the wing of Charity. It rather pleased her to treat Charity as a motherly sort of person. It is the most deliciously malicious compliment a woman can pay another.
Charity did not fail to receive the stab. But it amused her so far as she was concerned. She felt that Kedzie was like one of those incorrigible gamines who throw things at kindly visitors to the slums. She felt sorry for Jim, and wondered again by what strange devices he had been led to marry so incompatible a girl as Kedzie.