Part 15 (1/2)
”But what can you say to Sa.s.soon?”
”Him? Let me alone; I'll invent something--he'll never know! Bah! I shall miss a fine scene, that's all!” she added with a dramatic regret.
”Well, that's over! How much did you use?”
”Thirty-five.”
”Keep the rest!”
”I'll pay.”
”Bur-r--shut up! I'm not lending. Borrowing breaks up friends.h.i.+ps. It's yours--it's given!”
She looked at the distressed girl a moment and added apprehensively:
”Winona, you're losing your grip!”
”Losing? It's gone!”
”Decidedly, I must see Blainey this afternoon and get that job for you,”
said Dore pensively. She disliked these sudden bleak apparitions and hated long to consider them. ”You'll see in a few days, all will be changed--all!”
Ida returned with long-stemmed chrysanthemums towering over her brown curls, and made a second trip for some hydrangeas which she had found at Estelle Monks' below. The room had now quite the effect of a conservatory.
”Why don't you work the birthday gag?” said Winona helpfully.
”Can't! November's my month for Joe,” said Dore reluctantly.
Birthdays, needless to say, are legitimate perquisites in Salamanderland, and pretty certain to occur in the first or second months of each new acquaintance.
As the three Salamanders were thoughtfully considering this possibility, three knocks like the blow of a hammer sounded on the door, and the next moment the dreaded form of Miss Pim, yclept the d.u.c.h.ess, swept, or rather bounded, in.
”Humph! and what's this folderol mean?” she said, stopping short, sniffing and folding her hands over her stomach. ”Very fine! Plenty of money for cabs, perfumes, silks, hats, flowers, luxuries--”
”You certainly don't object to my having plenty of money, do you, Miss Pim?” said Dore in a caressing voice, as she went to her purse before the landlady could make the demand direct. ”You seem rather anxious about my little bill, I believe!”
”Little!” exclaimed Miss Pim, sitting down with the motion of a jack-knife shutting up.
Dore's calmness took away her breath, but a certain joy showed itself eagerly over her spectacled nose. She understood that such impudence meant pay. Nevertheless she sat stiffly and suspiciously, ready to pounce upon the slightest evasion.
Miss Pim's face advanced in three divisions--forehead, keen nose and sharpened chin. She wore a high false front, of a warmer brown than the slightly grizzled hair that she piled _en turban_ on her head, a majestic note which had earned her the sobriquet of ”the d.u.c.h.ess.” She adhered to the toilets of the late seventies--flowing brown shotted silks, heavy medallions, hair bracelets, and on state occasions appeared in baby pinks, as if denying the pa.s.sage of years. She had had a tragic romance--one only, for her nature was too determined to risk another, and at the age of fifty-four she still showed herself implacable to the male s.e.x, although not unwilling to let it be known that she could choose one of three any day she selected. She carried a hand-bag, which jingled with the warning note of silver dollars. She was horribly avaricious, and the Salamanders who courted her favor paid her, whenever possible, in specie. Then she would open her bag, holding it between her knees, and drop into it, one by one, the s.h.i.+ning round dollars, listening eagerly to the metallic shock.
”My dear Miss Pim,” said Dore, returning with her pocketbook, in a tone of calm superiority that left the landlady dumfounded, ”I've told you frequently that I prefer my bill monthly. These weekly rounds are exceedingly annoying. Please don't bother me again. I have nothing smaller than a hundred; can you change it?”
And flirting the fabulous bill before the eyes of the landlady, she nonchalantly let it flutter from the tips of her disdainful fingers.
Miss Pim, who liked to inspire terror, was so completely nonplused that, though her lips worked spasmodically, she found nothing to say. She took the bill furiously, and went out. A moment later Josephus appeared with the change in an envelope. The Salamanders were still in gales of laughter over the discomfiture of their common enemy.
Dodo, left alone, dressed in a simple dress of dull black, relieved by a lace edging at the throat and sleeves, and a tailor hat with the invariable splash of a red feather; for she made it a superst.i.tion never to be without a little red flutter of audacity and daring. Then she zealously applied the powder, to give a touch of ailing melancholy to her young cheeks--it would never do to appear before Mr. Peavey in too healthy a manifestation. In general, it must be noted that no Salamander is ever in perfect health. There is always lurking in the background a melancholy but most serviceable ailment that not only does for a thousand excuses, but encourages concrete evidences of masculine sympathy.
Her costume finished, she exercised her prevaricatory talents at the telephone, soothing irate admirers, who had clamored ineffectually for her the evening before, with plausible tales which, if they did not entirely believe, they ended by weakly accepting, which amounted to the same thing.