on the lamps. The street noises through the drawn curtains were an exciting overture to the night. As far back as she remembered twilight seemed the real beginning of day. The only time one truly had to oneself, a period of germination. Her heels sank luxuriously into the thick pile of the Moroccan rug as she went to comb her hair. If I work hard, she thought, I'll finish Figente's cataloging in a week. Then I'll splurge and have Lucy's hairdresser cut my hair before looking for a new job. A job among people, and stop being a girl hermit, she planned.
Hearing Lucy's key in the door she peered in the mirror to glimpse Lucy's mood, prepared for a continuance of the dejection which had not lifted since New Year's Eve. What she saw however was a bubbling happy Lucy.
"Noonan got me a grand contract. Two weeks at a hotel in Miami and two weeks in Palm Beach where I'll be the star attraction at the opening of a new club. Madame Jeanette is making me two costumes in five days, that's when I leave. A hundred yards of accordion pleated chiffon in the skirt, layers and layers from palest pink to American beauty and a big light-blue satin sash. And for the jazz on toes, black diamond-studded lace tights with a high collar and long red gloves. It feels good to be working again!"
A week after Lucy left, the cataloging of Figente's library was finished, and the next morning Vida went to the hairdresser, Apolthone. She came away with her hair side-parted, sleek as a chestnut, and with a soft puff over each ear. But her hat no longer fitted. She often had been with Lucy to the milliner, Hector, and thought she knew him well enough to ask if he had something she could afford among discarded stock.
"Miss James has left to get married," he wailed, "and it's the hardest thing to find a good-looking girl who can sell and also wear my hats as they should be. I wish I could offer you the job."
The idea seemed absurd and she refused pointblank. At home, however, she reflected that, assuming she could find a job at a publisher's, or on a magazine, it would only be a minor clerical one and more confining than being at Figente's. At Hector's, on the other hand, she would be in Lucy's world because to him came not only women of the theatre but those of fashion. His clients, Lucy, she herself, revealed themselves to him, perhaps because they felt him to be one of them, and to their beauticians, corsetieres, and coutu-
