“I’d have said the same thing to my own daughter if I had one.  You know yourself I’d bite my tongue out first!”

“Well!” said Julia slowly, and relented.  She came up the stairs almost shyly.  “Neuralgy any better?”

“Worse!” said Sadie Corn cheerfully.

Julia leaned against the desk sociably and glanced down the hall.

“Would you believe it,” she snickered, “she’s wearing red!  With that hair!  She asked me if I didn’t think she looked too pale.  I wanted to tell her that if she had any more colour, with that dress, they’d be likely to use the chemical sprinklers on her when she struck the Alley.”

“Sh-sh-sh!” breathed Sadie in warning.  Two-eighteen, in her shimmering, flame-coloured costume, was coming down the hall toward the elevators.  She walked with the absurd and stumbling step that her scant skirt necessitated.  With each pace the slashed silken skirt parted to reveal a shameless glimpse of cerise silk stocking.  In her wake came Venner, of Two-twenty-three—­a strange contrast in his black and white.

Sadie and Julia watched them from the corner nook.  Opposite the desk Two-eighteen stopped and turned to Julia.

“Just run into my room and pick things up and hang them away, will you?” she said.  “I didn’t have time—­and I hate things all about when I come in dead tired.”

The little formula of service rose automatically to Julia’s lips.

“Very well, madam,” she said.

Her eyes and Sadie’s followed the two figures until they had stepped into the cream-and-gold elevator and had vanished.  Sadie, peppermint bottle at nose, spoke first: 

“She makes one of those sandwich men with a bell, on Sixth Avenue, look like a shrinking violet!”

Julia’s lower lip was caught between her teeth.  The scent that had enveloped Two-eighteen as she passed was still in the air.  Julia’s nostrils dilated as she sniffed it.  Her breath came a little quickly.  Sadie Corn sat very still, watching her.

“Look at her!” said Julia, her voice vibrant.  “Look at her!  Old and homely, and all made up!  I powdered her neck.  Her skin’s like tripe.

“Now Julia—­” remonstrated Sadie Corn soothingly.

“I don’t care,” went on Julia with a rush.  “I’m young.  And I’m pretty too.  And I like pretty things.  It ain’t fair!  That was one reason why I broke with Jo.  It wasn’t only his mother.  I told him he couldn’t ever give me the things I want anyway.  You can’t help wanting ’em—­seeing them all round every day on women that aren’t half as good-looking as you are!  I want low-cut dresses too.  My neck’s like milk.  I want silk underneath, and fur coming up on my coat collar to make my cheeks look pink.  I’m sick of hooking other women up.  I want to stand in front of a mirror, looking at myself, polishing my pink nails with a silver thing and having somebody else hook me up!”

In Sadie Corn’s eyes there was a mist that could not be traced to neuralgia or peppermint.