The tall, stiff-necked dame turns out to be Mrs. Pemberton Foote. Honest! Could you blame her for bein' jarred when I come bouncin' in with garden truck?
Think of it! Why, she's one of the super-tax brigade and moves among the smartest of the smart-setters. And Pemmy, he's on the polo team, you know.
Oh, reg'lar people, the Pembroke Footes are. And the very fact that Mrs. Foote is here callin' on Vee ought to have me thrilled to the bone.
Yet all I got sense enough to do is wave half-grown string-beans at her, and then sit by gawpy, balancin' a cup of tea on my knee, and watch her apply the refrigeratin' process to the dumpy old girl whose name I didn't quite catch. Say, but she does it thorough and artistic. Only two or three times did the dumpy one try to kick in on the chat, and when she does, Mrs. Pemmy rolls them glittery eyes towards her slow, givin' her the up-and-down like she was some kind of fat worm that had strayed in from the cucumber bed.
Can't these women throw the harpoon into each other ruthless, though? Why, you could see that old girl fairly squirm when she got one of them assault-and-battery glances. Her under lip would quiver a bit, she'd wink hard three or four times, and then she'd sort of collapse, smotherin' a sigh and not finishin' what she'd started out to say. She did want to be so folksy, too.
Course, she's an odd-lookin' party, with that bucket-shaped lid decorated with pale green satin fruit, and the piles of thick blondine hair that was turnin' gray, and her foolish big eyes with the puffy rolls underneath and the crows'-feet in the corners. And of course anybody with ankles suggestin' piano legs really shouldn't go in for high-tide skirts and white silk stockin's with black butterflies worked on 'em. Should they?
Still, she'd raved over our string-beans, so when she makes a last fluttery try at jimmyin' her way into the conversation, and Mrs. Foote squelches her prompt again, and she gives up for good, it's me jumpin' snappy to tow her out and tuck her in the limousine. Havin' made my escape, I stays outside until after Mrs. Pemmy has gone too, which don't happen for near half an hour later. But when I hears the front door shut on her, I sidles in at the back.
"Zowie!" says I. "You must have made more of a hit with our swell neighbor than I did, Vee."
Vee smiles quizzin' and shrugs her shoulders.
"I'm not so sure," says she. "I almost feel as though we had been visited by the Probation Officer, or someone like that."