Carl looked at her bobbing back (with wrinkles in her cloth jacket over the shoulders) as she melted into the crowd of glossy fur-trimmed New-Yorkers. He comprehended her goodness, her devotion. He sighed, "If she'd only stop this hinting about Gertie and me——" He was repentant of his irritation, and said to Gertie, who was intimately cuddling her arm into his: "Adelaide's an awfully good kid. Sorry she had to go."
Gertie jerked her arm away, averted her profile, grated: "If you miss her so much, perhaps you'd better run after her. Really, I wouldn't interfere, not for worlds!"
"Why, hello, Gertie! What seems to be the matter? Don't I detect a chill in the atmosphere? So sorry you've gone and gotten refined on me. I was just going to suggest some low-brow amusement like tea at the Casino."
"Well, you ought to know a lady doesn't——"
"Oh, now, Gertie dear, not 'lady.'"
"I don't think you're a bit nice, Carl Ericson, I don't, to be making fun of me when I'm serious. And why haven't you been up to see us? Mamma and Ray have spoken of it, and you've only been up once since my party, and then you were——"
"Oh, please let's not start anything. Sorry I haven't been able to get up oftener, but I've been taking work home. You know how it is—you know when you get busy with your dancing-school——"
"Oh, I meant to tell you. I'm through, just through with Vashkowska and her horrid old school. She's a cat and I don't believe she ever had anything to do with the Russian ballet, either. What do you think she had the effrontery to tell me? She said that I wasn't practising and really trying to learn anything. And I've been working myself into——Really, my nerves were in such a shape, I would have been in danger of a nervous breakdown if I had kept on. Tottykins told me how she had a nervous breakdown, and had me see her doctor, such a dear, Dr. St. Claire, so refined and sympathetic, and he told me I was right in suspecting that nobody takes Vashkowska seriously any more, and, besides, I don't think much of all this symbolistic dancing, anyway, and at last I've found out what I really want to do. Oh, Carl, it's so wonderful! I'm studying ceramics with Miss Deitz, she's so wonderful and temperamental and she has the dearest studio on Gramercy Park. Of course I haven't made anything yet, but I know I'm going to like it so much, and Miss Deitz says I have a natural taste for vahzes and——"
"Huh? Oh yes, vases. I get you."
"(Don't be vulgar.)——I'm going to go down to her studio and work every other day, and she doesn't think you have to work like a scrubwoman to succeed, like that horrid Vashkowska did. Miss Deitz has a temperament herself. And, oh, Carl, she says that 'Gertrude' isn't suited to me (and 'Gertie' certainly isn't!) and she calls me 'Eltruda.' Don't you think that's a sweet name? Would you like to call me 'Eltruda,' sometimes?"