"Hey, what time is it?"
"Nine."
"Nine! For heaven's sake, what am I awake for at this hour? I'm lonesome. Bring your coffee in here, bring me some too."
Vida brought a tray.
Lucy moved over and sat up. "Sit next to me, we'll put the tray across both of us. Mad at me?"
"You might at least have phoned."
"I did, there wasn't any answer."
"What time?"
"About seven or eight."
"You lie," Vida said laughing and got onto the bed.
"To tell you the truth, I really couldn't. We were talking and then it was late and I thought you'd know I couldn't make it. I didn't know I was invited to dinner."
"Never mind, I know you're a procrastinator."
"I am not, I almost always tell the truth."
"That's a prevaricator."
"This is fun having breakfast together in bed. I'll bet if anyone saw us they'd think we were Lesbians."
Vida was shocked. "How awful!" Then, reproving herself for being narrow-minded, laughed louder than Lucy.
"'I will put you to rest on soft cushions—'"
"That's good," admired Lucy.
"That's Sappho," corrected Vida, "'you golden chickpea growing on the seashore.'"
They toyed with the notion of wearing mannish suits and strolling up Fifth Avenue arm in arm to shock the conventional, and debated who would wear a monocle and who would carry a cane.
"I think an air of gallantry is attractive in a woman," Lucy said, suddenly serious. "I think Iris March in The Green Hat is fascinating, the way she talks, looks, acts, and loves. I get awfully sick of my type."
Vida examined Lucy's face. She wasn't joking. "I think she's a book-woman invented by a man as his ideal. I'll bet she's more fascinating in a book than if she were real. All that gush about 'for purity.'"
"I should think you'd be just the person to understand her, you're so intense about things."
"I am not," Vida denied, knowing it was true. "Do you mean commit suicide for love?"
