"I--All right, I'm going."

She readjusted her hat, a tiny winged chariot of pink straw and designed
after fashion's most epileptic caprice, coaxed her ringed fingers into
a pair of but slightly soiled white gloves, her eyes the while staring
past her slim reflection in the mirror and on to the mauve-colored
swinging-door.

"Good night, Gert."

Miss Dobriner bared her teeth to a smile and closed her lips again
before she spoke. "Good night--madam."

Then she went out, clicking the door behind her. Through the
mauve-colored swinging-door and scarcely a clock-tick later entered Mr.
Alphonse Michelson, spick, light-footed, slim.

"Charley's left with the black lace, madam."

It was as if Madam Moores suddenly threw off the husk of the day.
"Tired, Phonzie?"

He ran a hand across his silk hair and glanced about. "Everybody gone?"

"Yes."

He reached for his hat and cane and a pair of untried gray gloves atop
them. "I sent the yellow taffeta out on a C.O.D. That gold buckle she
wanted on the shoulder cost her just twenty bucks more."