"Oh no, it's a very nice name," she said. "Fancy being called Joline. Now Schwirtz sounds rather like Schenck, and that's one of the smartest of the old names.... Uh, would it be too much trouble to see if Mr. Truax is still engaged?"
"He is.... Miss Joline, I feel like doing something I've wanted to do for some time. Of course we both know you think of me as 'that poor little dub, Mrs. What's-her-name, D. T.'s secretary-'"
"Why, really-"
"-or perhaps you hadn't thought of me at all. I'm naturally quite a silent little dub, but I've been learning that it's silly to be silent in business. So I've been planning to get hold of you and ask you where and how you get those suits of yours, and what I ought to wear. You see, after you marry I'll still be earning my living, and perhaps if I could dress anything like you I could fool some business man into thinking I was clever."
"As I do, you mean," said Miss Joline, cheerfully.
"Well-"
"Oh, I don't mind. But, my dear, good woman-oh, I suppose I oughtn't to call you that."
"I don't care what you call me, if you can tell me how to make a seventeen-fifty suit look like Vogue. Isn't it awful, Miss Joline, that us lower classes are interested in clothes, too?"
"My dear girl, even the beautiful, the accomplished Beatrice Joline-I'll admit it-knows when she is being teased. I went to boarding-school, and if you think I haven't ever been properly and thoroughly, and oh, most painstakingly told what a disgusting, natural snob I am, you ought to have heard Tomlinson, or any other of my dear friends, taking me down. I rather fancy you're kinder-hearted than they are; but, anyway, you don't insult me half so scientifically."
"I'm so sorry. I tried hard-I'm a well-meaning insulter, but I haven't the practice."
"My dear, I adore you. Isn't it lovely to be frank? When us females get into Mr. Truax's place we'll have the most wonderful time insulting each other, don't you think? But, really, please don't think I like to be rude. But you see we Jolines are so poor that if I stopped it all my business acquaintances would think I was admitting how poor we are, so I'm practically forced to be horrid. Now that we've been amiable to each other, what can I do for you?... Does that sound business-like enough?"
"I want to make you give me some hints about clothes. I used to like terribly crude colors, but I've settled down to tessie things that are safe-this gray dress, and brown, and black."
"Well, my dear, I'm the best little dressmaker you ever saw, and I do love to lay down the law about clothes. With your hair and complexion, you ought to wear clear blues. Order a well-made-be sure it's well-made, no matter what it costs. Get some clever little Jew socialist tailor off in the outskirts of Brooklyn, or some heathenish place, and stand over him. A well-made tailored suit of not too dark navy blue, with matching blue crêpe de Chine blouses with nice, soft, white collars, and cuffs of crêpe or chiffon-and change 'em often."
"What about a party dress? Ought I to have satin, or chiffon, or blue net, or what?"
"Well, satin is too dignified, and chiffon too perishable, and blue net is too tessie. Why don't you try black net over black satin? You know there's really lots of color in black satin if you know how to use it. Get good materials, and then you can use them over and over again-perhaps white chiffon over the black satin."
"White over black?"
Though Miss Joline stared down with one of the quick, secretive smiles which Una hated, the smile which reduced her to the rank of a novice, her eyes held Miss Joline, made her continue her oracles.
"Yes," said Miss Joline, "and it isn't very expensive. Try it with the black net first, and have soft little folds of white tulle along the edge of the décolletage-it's scarcely noticeable, but it does soften the neck-line. And wear a string of pearls. Get these Artifico pearls, a dollar-ninety a string.... Now you see how useful a snob is to the world! I'd never give you all this god-like advice if I didn't want to advertise what an authority I am on 'Smart Fashions for Limited Incomes.'"
"You're a darling," said Una.
"Come to tea," said Miss Joline.
They did go to tea. But before it, while Miss Joline was being voluble with Mr. Truax, Una methodically made notes on the art of dress and filed them for future reference. Despite the fact that, with the support of Mr. Schwirtz as her chief luxury, she had only sixteen dollars in the world, she had faith that she would sometime take a woman's delight in dress, and a business woman's interest in it.... This had been an important hour for her, though it cannot be authoritatively stated which was the more important-learning to dress, or learning not to be in awe of a Joline of Gramercy Park.
They went to tea several times in the five months before the sudden announcement of Miss Joline's engagement to Wally Castle, of the Tennis and Racquet Club. And at tea they bantered and were not markedly different in their use of forks or choice of pastry. But never were they really friends. Una, of Panama, daughter of Captain Golden, and wife of Eddie Schwirtz, could comprehend Walter Babson and follow Mamie Magen, and even rather despised that Diogenes of an enameled tub, Mr. S. Herbert Ross; but it seemed probable that she would never be able to do more than ask for bread and railway tickets in the language of Beatrice Joline, whose dead father had been ambassador to Portugal and friend to Henry James and John Hay.
§ 2
It hurt a little, but Una had to accept the fact that Beatrice Joline was no more likely to invite her to the famous and shabby old house of the Jolines than was Mrs. Truax to ask her advice about manicuring. They did, however, have dinner together on an evening when Miss Joline actually seemed to be working late at the office.
"Let's go to a Café des Enfants," said Miss Joline. "Such a party! And, honestly, I do like their coffee and the nice, shiny, bathroom walls."
"Yes," said Una, "it's almost as much of a party to me as running a typewriter.... Let's go Dutch to the Martha Washington."
"Verra well. Though I did want buckwheats and little sausages. Exciting!"
"Huh!" said Una, who was unable to see any adventurous qualities in a viand which she consumed about twice a week.
Miss Joline's clean litheness, her gaiety that had never been made timorous or grateful by defeat or sordidness, her whirlwind of nonsense, blended in a cocktail for Una at dinner. Schwirtz, money difficulties, weariness, did not exist. Her only trouble in the entire universe was the reconciliation of her admiration for Miss Joline's amiable superiority to everybody, her gibes at the salesmen, and even at Mr. Truax, with Mamie Magen's philanthropic socialism. (So far as this history can trace, she never did reconcile them.)
She left Miss Joline with a laugh, and started home with a song-then stopped. She foresaw the musty room to which she was going, the slatternly incubus of a man. Saw-with just such distinctness as had once dangled the stiff, gray scrub-rag before her eyes-Schwirtz's every detaiclass="underline" bushy chin, stained and collarless shirt, trousers like old chair-covers. Probably he would always be like this. Probably he would never have another job. But she couldn't cast him out. She had married him, in his own words, as a "good provider." She had lost the bet; she would be a good loser-and a good provider for him.... Always, perhaps.... Always that mass of spoiled babyhood waiting at home for her.... Always apologetic and humble-she would rather have the old, grumbling, dominant male....
She tried to push back the moment of seeing him again. Her steps dragged, but at last, inevitably, grimly, the house came toward her. She crept along the moldy hall, opened the door of their room, saw him-
She thought it was a stranger, an intruder. But it was veritably her husband, in a new suit that was fiercely pressed and shaped, in new, gleaming, ox-blood shoes, with a hair-cut and a barber shave. He was bending over the bed, which was piled with new shirts, Afro-American ties, new toilet articles, and he was packing a new suit-case.