Horta, working on the library, and Hal's apartment. "Figente doesn't understand why you haven't been to see him. He looks dreadful."
"I did phone one day when I felt I had to talk to someone but there was no answer. He must have been away then. Now I don't feel like seeing him, or anyone of his crowd. That's why I moved. I thought a change would do me good. I didn't want to hear any more about art. I think artists are very one-sided, don't you? But I do feel sorry for Figente about Hal. Those boys are very fickle. I suppose he meant well about showing up Horta but it came a little late."
"How could he know what she was, and was up to, until we told him?" Vida came to his defense.
"I know," Lucy said restlessly, "but the damage had been done. I was looking in a Fifth Avenue window and a man came and stood next to me and said 'Hello!' He was a total stranger. Then he said, 'We have mutual friends, Fred Lapham tells me.' I remembered meeting Lapham for the first time at Horta's party, so I said, 'You are mistaken' and he said, 'Oh come now.' I had to say I'd call a cop before he'd go away."
She took a new pair of slippers from a box and tied their straps above the ankle with black ribbons.
"Very sporty!" Vida said about the stilt-heeled slippers with round black toes and tan heels.
"Yes, I found a new French shoeshop. Not expensive. I like to wear a pair two weeks and then throw them away. There's another reason I moved from Park Avenue. Men I didn't know began calling me up at all hours, using Lorna's name. Then there was another man I used to have dinner with sometimes I wanted to shake. He was a broker and one time we played bridge with another couple and I won about $2,000. He said I ought to give it to him to invest on margin so I did. He made me quite a lot of money, but I didn't see why he should think he owned me. I said he could have his money back, but he wouldn't take it. Anyway $7,000 was nothing to him. He's a millionaire."
At least, Vida thought, relieved, she isn't broke.
Lucy parted her hair in the center, brushing and rolling the ends under at the level of her ear lobes. "This is called a page boy bob. I got tired of curls. My hair is naturally straight."
"I always thought it had a wave."
