While Paula was eating the last scrap of tea and toast, and protesting that she felt a good deal more like eating a steak, Peggy got some pajamas for her from a bureau drawer, and a robe and some slippers from the closet. Then, since Paula was still weak, she helped her change into them, made up the daybed, and tucked her in bed.
“You look a lot better now,” Peggy said. “The best thing for you to do is get a good night’s sleep. You’ll feel better in the morning. You’ll find eggs and butter and coffee and orange juice in the kitchen, so you can make breakfast for yourself, but after eating, go back to bed and rest. That’s doctor’s orders. I’ll come up here at noontime, and we can go out for a good lunch together.”
Cutting Paula’s thanks short with a wave of her hand, Peggy said a quick good night and left. It was past her bedtime, too.
IX
One for the Money....
In the comfortable, well-furnished living room of the Gramercy Arms, Peggy prepared to call a meeting to order.
May Berriman, the retired actress who owned the house, sat regally in a high-backed, thronelike chair. Her hands were busy with a tiny silver bobbin and a tatting needle, making delicate lace; but they seemed to be working with an intelligence of their own while their owner, not even looking at them, was busily observing the faces of “her girls.”
Irene Marshall, the house beauty, was gracefully curled up on the couch in the sort of decorative pose hardly ever seen outside the pages of the more expensive fashion magazines. At the other end of the couch, her knees drawn up and her feet tucked under her, sat Gaby (Gabrielle Odette Francine Du-Champs Goulet), looking about her expectantly, her head cocked to one side like a toy French poodle’s.
Maggie Delahanty, the dancer, sat cross-legged on the floor like a Hindu, her back straight and her hands loosely folded, a magazine open on her knees. She could sit for hours like this in apparent perfect comfort, in a position the other girls found almost impossible to get into at all.
In more conventional positions, seated on chairs, were Greta, Amy, and Peggy.
“I guess everybody’s here now,” Peggy said, “so I might as well tell you why I asked you all to meet in here. I need your help, but I didn’t want to explain it several times, because it’s rather a complicated story.”