“Like a mountain railway.”
“That a simile or a metaphor?—I say, I must get scrubbed. Six o’clock.”
She passed Gurdy, leaving the room. He saw her teeth white against the red translucency of her lower lip and carmine streaks rising in her face, but her door shut slowly.
“Took it like a Trojan,” Mark proudly said, “Guess the Washington papers opened her eyes some. Well, let’s go see if Russell’s downstairs, Gurd. He’s got a room on this floor. Gad, Olive, I wish we were goin’ to a dance tonight instead of this—junk.”
“Margot should wear something very smart for this dance, shouldn’t she?” Olive asked. “The Jannans are the mighty of earth, aren’t they?”
“Old family. Steel mills,” Gurdy explained.
“I’ve met some of them in Scotland. Wasn’t there a Miss Jannan who did something extraordinary? I remember a row in the New York papers. Didn’t she—”
Mark laughed, “Ran off with a married man. They’ve got a couple of kids, too.”
“Doesn’t that domestic touch redeem the performance, Mark?”
Mark chuckled and drawled, “Now, here! You make out you’re a wild eyed radical and so on. Suppose some girl that ought to know better came and lived next you in Chelsea with a married man. Ask her to dinner?”