“About Miss Edith’s dress”—she said with another toss of her head—“if it’s not lost, I guess it’ll turn up. Maybe one of the girls borrowed it, if ye know what I mean.”
With this, she closed the door behind her and was gone.
Half an hour later Mr. Frederick Jack came walking down the hall with his copy of the Herald-Tribune under his arm. He was feeling in very good humour. By now he had completely forgotten his momentary annoyance at the telephone call that had awakened him in the middle of the night. He rapped lightly at his wife’s door and waited. There was no answer. More faintly, listening, he rapped again.
“Are you there?” he said.
He opened the door and entered noiselessly.
She was already deeply absorbed in the first task of her day’s work. On the other side of the room, with her back to him, she was seated at a small writing-desk between the windows with a little stack of bills, business letters, and personal correspondence on her left hand, and an open cheque-book on her right. She was vigorously scrawling off a note. As he advanced towards her she put down the pen, swiftly blotted the paper, and was preparing to fold it and thrust it in an envelope when he spoke.
“Good morning,” he said in the pleasant, half-ironic tone that people use when they address someone who is not aware of their presence.
She jumped and turned round quickly.
“Oh, hello, Fritz!” she cried in her jolly voice. “How are youhah?”
He stooped in a somewhat formal fashion, planted a brief, friendly, and perfunctory kiss on her cheek, and straightened up, unconsciously shrugging his shoulders a little, and giving his sleeves and the bottom of his coat a tug to smooth out any wrinkle that might have appeared to disturb the faultless correctness of his appearance. While his wife’s quick glance took in every detail of his costume for the day—his shoes, socks, trousers, coat, and tie, together with the perfection of his tailored form and the neat gardenia in his buttonhole—her face, now bent forward and held firmly in one cupped hand in an attitude of eager attentiveness, had a puzzled and good-natured look which seemed to say: “I can see that you are laughing at me about something. What have I done now?”
Mr. Jack stood before her, feet apart and arms akimbo, regarding her with an expression of mock gravity, in which, however, his good humour and elation were apparent.
“Well, what is it?” she cried excitedly.
In answer, Mr. Jack produced the newspaper which he had been holding folded back in one hand, and tapped it with his index finger, saying:
“Have you seen this?”
“No. Who is it?”
“It’s Elliot in the Herald-Tribune. Like to hear it?”
“Yes. Read it. What does he say?”
Mr. Jack struck a pose, rattled the paper, frowned, cleared his throat in mock solemnity, and then began in a slightly ironic and affected tone, intended to conceal his own deep pleasure and satisfaction, to read the review.
“‘Mr. Shulberg has brought to this, his latest production, the full artillery of his distinguished gifts for suave direction. He has paced it brilliantly, timed it—word, scene, and gesture—with some of the most subtly nuanced, deftly restrained, and quietly persuasive acting that this season has yet seen. He has a gift for silence that is eloquent—oh, devoutly eloquent!—among all the loud but for the most part meaningless vociferation of the current stage. All this your diligent observer is privileged to repeat with more than customary elation. Moreover, Mr. Shulberg has revealed to us in the person of Montgomery Mortimer the finest youthful talent that this season has discovered. Finally----’”
Mr. Jack cleared his throat solemnly—“Ahem, ahem!”—flourished his arms forward and rattled the paper expressively, and stared drolly at his wife over the top of it. Then he went on:
“‘Finally, he has given us, with the distinguished aid of Miss Esther Jack, a faultless and unobtrusive décor which warmed these ancient bones as they have not been warmed for many a Broadway moon. In these three acts, Miss Jack contributes three of the most effective settings she has ever done for the stage. Hers is a talent that needs make obeisance to no one. She is, in fact, in the studied opinion of this humble but diligent observer, the first designer of her time.’”
Mr. Jack paused abruptly, looked at her with playful gravity, his head cocked over the edges of the paper and said: “Did you say something?”
“God!” she yelled, her happy face flushed with laughter and excitement. “Did you hear it? Vat is dees?” she said comically, making a Jewish gesture with her hands—“an ovation?—What else does he say—hah?” she asked, bending forward eagerly.
Mr. Jack proceeded: