"Right away, madam!" she said, at the telephone. "Right away! You won't
have to wait another minute." She hung up the receiver and waved Julia
away with a gesture. "It's Two-eighteen. You promised to be there in
fifteen minutes. She's been waiting and her voice sounds like a saw.
Better be careful how you handle her."

Julia's head, with its sleek, satiny coils of black hair that waved away
so bewitchingly from the cream of her skin, came up with a jerk.

"I'm tired of being careful of other people's feelings. Let somebody be
careful of mine for a change." She walked off down the hall, the little
head still held high. A half dozen paces and she turned. "What was it
you said you'd do to me if you caught me talking to him again?" she
sneered.

A miserable twinge of pain shot through Sadie Corn's eye, to be followed
by a wave of nausea that swept over her. They alone were responsible for
her answer.

"I'll report you!" she snapped, and was sorry at once.

Julia turned again, walked down the corridor and round the corner in the
direction of two-eighteen.

Long after Julia had disappeared Sadie Corn stared after
her--miserable, regretful.

Julia knocked once at the door of two-eighteen and turned the knob
before a high, shrill voice cried:

"Come!"

Two-eighteen was standing in the centre of the floor in scant satin
knickerbockers and tight brassiere. The blazing folds of a cerise satin
gown held in her hands made a great, crude patch of colour in the
neutral-tinted bedroom. The air was heavy with scent. Hair, teeth, eyes,
fingernails--Two-eighteen glowed and glistened. Chairs and bed held odds
and ends.

"Where've you been, girl?" shrilled Two-eighteen. "I've been waiting
like a fool! I told you to be here in fifteen minutes."

"My stop-watch isn't working right," replied Julia impudently and took
the cerise satin gown in her two hands.

She made a ring of the gown's opening, and through that cerise frame her
eyes met those of Two-eighteen.

"Careful of my hair!" Two-eighteen warned her, and ducked her head to
the practised movement of Julia's arms. The cerise gown dropped to her
shoulders without grazing a hair. Two-eighteen breathed a sigh of
relief. She turned to face the mirror.

"It starts at the left, three hooks; then to the centre; then back
four--under the arm and down the middle again. That chiffon comes over
like a drape."

She picked up a buffer from the litter of ivory and silver on the
d