once without knowing it. To use an awkward metaphor, it was before her
face like an overtone; it was an invisible caul. The wells of her eyes
were muddy with it.

But withal, she commanded something of a manner, even from Wheeler. He
had no key to the apartment. He never entered her room without knocking.
There were certain of his friends she would not tolerate, from one or
another aversion, to be party to their not infrequent carousals. Men
did not always rise from their chairs when she entered a room, but she
suffered few liberties from them. She was absolutely indomitable in her
demands.

"Lord!" ventured Wheeler, upon occasion, across a Sunday-noon,
lace-spread breakfast table, when she was slim and cool fingered in
orchid-colored draperies, and his newest gift of a six-carat,
pear-shaped diamond blazing away on her right hand. "Say, aren't these
Yvette bills pretty steep?

"One midnight-blue-and-silver gown . . . . . . . . . $485.00
One blue-and-silver head bandeau . . . . . . . . . . 50.00
One serge-and-satin trotteur gown . . . . . . . . . 275.00
One ciel-blue tea gown . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 280.00

"Is that the cheapest you can drink tea? Whew!"

She put down her coffee cup, which she usually held with one little
finger poised elegantly outward as if for flight.

"You've got a nerve!" she said, rising and pushing back her chair. "Over
whose ticker are you getting quotations that I come cheap?"