, would
have wed the little stay-at-home.
Kedzie, the pretty fool, apparently fancied that she would have been
happy if Gilfoyle had been a handsomer sleeper, and the apartment
a handsomer apartment, and the bank-account an inexhaustible fountain
of gold.
But would she have been? Peter Cheever was as handsome as a man
dares to be, awake or asleep; he had vast quantities of money, and
he was generous with it. But Zada L'Etoile was not happy. She dwelt
in an apartment that would have overwhelmed Kedzie by the depth of
its velvets and the height of its colors.
Yet Zada was crying this very morning--crying like mad because
while she had Cheever she had no marriage license. She tore her
hair and bit it, and peeled diamonds off her fingers and threw them
at the mirror like pebbles, and sopped up her tears with point-lace
handkerchiefs and hurled those to the floor--then hurled herself
after them. She was a tremendous weeper, Zada.
And in Newport there was a woman who had a marriage license but no
husband. She slept in a room too beautiful for Kedzie to have liked.
She did not know enough to like it. She would have found it cold.
Charity Cheever found it cold, but she slept at last, though the
salt wind blowing in from the sea tormented the light curtains and
plucked at the curls about Charity's face. There was salt in the
air, and her eyelashes were still wet with tears. She was crying
in her sleep, for loneliness.
Kedzie thought her room was small, but it was nearly as big as
the bedroom where Jim Dyckman had slept.
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