Page:Our Little Girl (1923).pdf/66

 Here Dorothy came to breakfast, red-eyed.

“Cheer up, Dorothy,” cried Loamford. “Your Madame Schneider leads a double life. I won’t let you take lessons from her any more.”

He threw the letter and clippings to Dorothy.

Dorothy read both and smiled.

“Who'd ever think-"

And then she kissed her mother.

“Fine, fine,’ commented Loamford. “Thank Heaven, that’s over. Can’t see, though, why you shouldn’t find something inspiring in such an attractive woman.”

He anticipated his wife’s remark.

“Don’t get jealous, mother. You’re not so bad yourself!”

It was one of his jolly mornings.

“I’m so thankful!”

Dorothy’s half-smothered remark brought inquiring looks from her parents. But she only kissed them and busied herself with breakfast.

If Dorothy had known to whom to be thankful, she would have made a pilgrimage to the shrines of a certain tailor and a certain hair-dresser, one of whom had converted Edna Schneider (whose Madame was hers by courtesy only) into an alluring little body, and the other of whom had swung a mass of unconsidered hair into a design which attracted every eye. Or perhaps she should have sent a letter of thanks to a young actor who had thrown an ironic suggestion about names and makeup to an insignificant vocal teacher and who had been taken seriously.