these attacks were made. Once or twice she had sought to disprove the contention of some obviously biased person. Her face had flamed and she had relapsed into a silence that galled her when she had been met by the curt statement that in itself was a challenge: “Oh, you’re a ‘nigger-lover’—and from the South too!” …
Steadily she kept to the course she had set despite these and other distractions. Madame Francine’s visits to the new shop in Fifty-seventh Street became more and more infrequent, now that she spent most of her time in her home at Mount Vernon and her winters in Florida. Mimi was now actually the mistress of the place and she occupied the room which would have been Madame Francine’s, though there was always a desk ready for her when she chose to come in and consult with Mimi on matters of importance. …
Mrs. Horace Crosby, late of Chicago, where her Rotary Club husband had manipulated certain markets in grain, very much to the advantage of the Crosby exchequer, waddled puffingly, her succession of chins joggling with jellylike quiverings above her ample breast, across the narrow pavement of the Rue de la Paix to her waiting motorcar. Her rotund, much bepowdered and berouged face broke into a cherubic smile that spread like ripples on a placid pond when a stone is dropped into it, as she saw a trim, reddish-haired young woman approaching. She turned and effectively blocked the passage of the young woman, making non-recognition even less possible by extending her fat arms adorned with numerous bracelets and her fingers much bedecked with diamonds.
“Well, now, if this ain’t lovely—to run across you like this in Paris, Miss Daquin! You must get right in and come to the hotel for luncheon with me. I just must show you some of the lovely things I’ve bought—real antiques and pictures and lots of pretty things—but Horace says I’m a fool to spend so much money on these ‘Frog’ things—tells me they sting me every time I go in a place—”