“Live at home?” Miss Myrtle’s grasshopper mind never dwelt long on one subject.

“Well, sure,” replied Ray.  “Did you think I had a flat up on the Drive?”

“I live at home too,” Miss Myrtle announced impressively.  She was leaning indolently against the table.  Her eyes followed the deft, quick movements of Ray’s slender, capable hands.  Miss Myrtle always leaned when there was anything to lean on.  Involuntarily she fell into melting poses.  One shoulder always drooped slightly, one toe always trailed a bit like the picture on the cover of the fashion magazines, one hand and arm always followed the line of her draperies while the other was raised to hip or breast or head.

Ray’s busy hands paused a moment.  She looked up at the picturesque Myrtle.  “All the girls do, don’t they?”

“Huh?” said Myrtle blankly.

“Live at home, I mean?  The application blank says—­”

“Say, you’ve got clever hands, ain’t you?” put in Miss Myrtle irrelevantly.  She looked ruefully at her own short, stubby, unintelligent hands, that so perfectly reflected her character in that marvellous way hands have.  “Mine are stupid-looking.  I’ll bet you’ll get on.”  She sagged to the other hip with a weary gracefulness.  “I ain’t got no brains,” she complained.

“Where do they live then?” persisted Ray.

“Who?  Oh, I live at home”—­again virtuously—­“but I’ve got some heart if I am dumb.  My folks couldn’t get along without what I bring home every week.  A lot of the girls have flats.  But that don’t last.  Now Jevne—­”

“Yes?” said Ray eagerly.  Her plump face with its intelligent eyes was all aglow.

Miss Myrtle lowered her voice discreetly.  “Her own folks don’t know where she lives.  They says she sends ’em money every month, but with the understanding that they don’t try to come to see her.  They live way over on the West Side somewhere.  She makes her buying trip to Europe every year.  Speaks French and everything.  They say when she started to earn real money she just cut loose from her folks.  They was a drag on her and she wanted to get to the top.”

“Say, that pin’s real, ain’t it?”

“Real?  Well, I should say it is!  Catch Jevne wearing anything that’s phony.  I saw her at the theatre one night.  Dressed!  Well, you’d have thought that birds of paradise were national pests, like English sparrows.  Not that she looked loud.  But that quiet, rich elegance, you know, that just smells of money.  Say, but I’ll bet she has her lonesome evenings!”

Ray Willets’ eyes darted across the long room and rested upon the shining black-clad figure of Miss Jevne moving about against the luxurious ivory-and-rose background of the French Room.

“She—­she left her folks, h’m?” she mused aloud.

Miss Myrtle, the brainless, regarded the tips of her shabby boots.