It was part of Hester's scheme for
keeping her sveltness.
Her friendships were necessarily rather confined to a definite
circle--within her own apartment house, in fact. On the floor above,
also in large, bright rooms of high rental, and so that they were
exchanging visits frequently during the day, often _en deshabille_,
using the stairway that wound up round the elevator shaft, lived a
certain Mrs. Kitty Drew, I believe she called herself. She was plump and
blond, and so very scented that her aroma lay on a hallway for an hour
after she had scurried through it. She was well known and chiefly
distinguished by a large court-plaster crescent which she wore on her
left shoulder blade. She enjoyed the bounty of a Wall Street broker
who for one day had attained the conspicuousness of cornering the egg
market.
There were two or three others within this group. A Mrs. Denison, half
French, and a younger girl called Babe. But Mrs. Drew and Hester were
intimates. They dwaddled daily in one or the other's apartment, usually
lazy and lacy with negligee, lounging about on the mounds of lingerie
pillows over chocolates, cigarettes, novels, Pomeranians, and always the
headache powders, nerve sedatives, or smelling salts, a running line of:
"Lord! I've a head!" "I need a good cry for the blues!" "Talk about a
dark-brown taste!" or, "There was some kick to those cocktails last
night," through their conversation.
Pages:
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98