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On one side of the laundry sink there is also one of Kedzie's large size rain-water filters, which holds several pails full of water, and which we commend as an admirable contrivance for the purposes intended.
He pointed to the motor-coat and hat that Kedzie had brought and tossed on a lounge. Charity recoiled from wearing Kedzie's cast-off clothes or from disguising as Jim's wife, but her downcast eyes revealed her bare shoulders and arms and her delicate evening gown. They had been exquisitely appropriate to night and night lights, but they were ghastly in the day.
There was elegy now in Kedzie's graces. Youth was of their essence, and youth shakes off like the dust on the moth's wing. Youth is gone at a touch. In her sorrow she turned to look up at Jim. She was shocked to see how attentively he regarded Kedzie. He startled her by the fascination in his mien. She looked again at Kedzie.
It was a more or less inescapable result of a marriage for ambition, since each ambition achieved opens a horizon of further ambitions. She had a brief spell of delight in the rehearsals of the "Day of the Bud." She met new people informally and they were all so shy and self-conscious that they were not inclined to resent Kedzie's intrusion.
She put on Kedzie's mantle; it blistered her like the mantle Medea sent to her successor in her husband's love. She sat in the office and some of the guests passed through. She could see that they took her to be one of their sort, and shocks of red and white alternated through her skin. When Jim was ready he came down with his evening clothes in the suit-case.
And she could most innocently spoil any bit that she did not like to do herself or have done by another. In the studio she was speedily recognized as an ambitious young woman zealous for self-advancement. In fact, they called her a "reel hog" and a "glutton for footage." A number of minor feuds were turned into deep friendships through a common resentment at Kedzie's impartial robberies.
Kedzie laughed at the extraordinary inclusiveness of their High Exclusivenesses until she got her own home. And then she learned its bitter meaning. It was not that Mrs. Dyckman meant to freeze her out. She urged her to "come in any time." But, as Kedzie told Jim, "an invitation to come any time is an invitation to stay away all the time." Kedzie's pride kept her aloof.
She did at last what Jim had done nothing. Jim's mother had heard of Vanderveer's disappearance from Kedzie's entourage and she had improved with hope. When she learned that Strathdene was apparently infatuated she grew worse and telegraphed Jim to ask for a leave of absence. She did not tell Kedzie of her telegram or of Jim's answer.
Jim retired to his own dressing-room and faced the veiled contempt of his valet, leaving Kedzie to the ministrations of Liliane, who drew the tub and saw that it was just hot enough, sprinkled the aromatic bath-salts, and laid out the towels and Kedzie's things.
Noxon once swore down a mutinous stableman, how Miss Wossom ran away with her coachman. There was something finely old-fashioned and conservative about that. A new-rich would have run away with a chauffeur. The driver knew Jim Dyckman's back and pointed him out. The girls laughed, remembering Kedzie's encounter with him. They laughed so loud that Dyckman turned, startled by the racket.
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