“Turn round. It’s awfully Frenchy, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” said Jean; “it’s lucky for me the imported creations are always shy on trimming. Just one wonderful bow or something,—” she chucked Clara under the chin,—“if you only know just how to place it.”
The girls took another stare. “You don’t mean to say you made it yourself?”
At a quarter to five a dapper “juvenile” gentleman lifted his hat airily in the offices of B. B. Littleton. “Beg pardon,” he said, “but haven’t you stepped on something?”
Jean crossed her feet hastily, blushing. Through the generous aperture in her left sole she knew he must have read the engraved words, “Mr. and Mrs. U. R. Sweet announce the marriage,” etc. Experience had taught her that, of all cardboards, that used for wedding-invitations is the most durable.
Now, any woman who after dire straits has had her wardrobe unexpectedly replenished, is apt in her delight to consider her new-found costume indestructible. So Jean Caspian relied implicitly on good old “Three-in-one.”
But, alas! three months later what a change had been wrought! Silk and wool could barely hold together any longer. Her mind, like her costume, had also become frayed, worn, and out of date. “Chasing” for an engagement had by this time become a mere habit; and continual contact with weary, discouraged seekers for work had gradually accomplished its demoralizing effect.
As Jean sat one morning in the crowded office of B. B. Littleton, her two-hours’ wait dreamed itself away in the hypnotic fascination of watching person after person, rouged and powdered, with heroically assumed expressions of prosperity and cheerfulness, squeeze into the little room, only to have the dry, suffocating “waiting” atmosphere gradually desiccate them till, benumbed by discouragement, they seemed like mummies, swathed in despairing introspection, the juices of their ambitions long since dried up.
A vivid, fresh young miss entered. Her enthusiastic appearance in that chamber of dead hopes woke the inert groups to laughter. Her face was radiant with “dramatic-school” promises, her confidence obviously reinforced with a “personal” letter.