in rage it
turned green. But who knows? It was also said that Josie Drew's correct
name was Josie Rosalsky. But again who knows? Her past was vivid with
the heat lightning of the sharp storms of men's lives. At nineteen she
had worn in public restaurants a star-sapphire necklace, originally
designed by a soap magnate for his wife, of these her birthstones.

At twenty her fourteen-room apartment faced the Park, but was on the
ground floor because a vice-president of a bank, a black-broadcloth
little pelican of a man, who stumped on a cane and had a pink tin roof
to his mouth, disliked elevators.

At twenty-three and unmentionably enough, a son of a Brazilian coffee
king, inflamed with the deviltry of debauch, had ground a wine tumbler
against her forehead, inducing the pock marks. At twenty-seven it was
the fourth vice-president of a Harlem bank. At twenty-nine an interim.
Startling to Josie Drew. Terrifying. Lean. For the first time in eight
years her gasoline expenditures amounted to ninety cents a month instead
of from forty to ninety dollars. And then not at the garage, but at the
corner drug store. Cleaning fluid for kicked-out glove and slipper tips.

The little jangle of chatelaine absurdities which she invariably
affected--mesh bag, lip stick, memorandum (for the traffic in telephone
numbers), vanity, and cigarette case were gold--filled. There remained
a sapphire necklace, but this one faithfully copied to the wink of the
stars and the pearl clasp by the Chemic Jewel Company. Much of the
indoor appeal of Miss Drew was still the pink silkiness of her, a
little stiffened from washing and ironing, it is true, but there was a
flesh-colored arrangement of intricate drape that was rosily kind to
her. Also a vivid yellow one of a later and less expensive period, all
heavily slashed in Valenciennes lace. This brought out a bit of virago
through her induced blondness, but all the same it italicized her, just
as the crescent of black court plaster exclaimed at the whiteness of her
back.

She could spend an entire morning fluffing at these things, pressing
out, with a baby electric iron and a sleeve board, a crumple of chiffon
to new sheerness, getting at spots with cleaning fluid. Under alcoholic
duress Josie dropped things. There was a furious stain down the
yellow, from a home brew of canned lobster a la Newburg. The stain
she eliminated entirely by cutting out the front panel and wearing it
skimpier.

In these fi