Gradually life began to resume its accustomed gait at the apartment. Jerry had curtailed all parties during Joy’s convalescence, but now was off again. It was nearing fall; people were coming back into town; the telephone jangled constantly. Joy lacked the energy to join any of these parties, and the evenings were very lonely; as she had not gone back to Pa Graham’s as yet, her days also were long and purposeless. And so a week had passed on leaden wheels. And one evening about ten-thirty when she heard a babble of voices in the living-room, she made up her mind to dress and annex herself to the crowd. The music of popping corks and carefree laughter assailed her ears as she came into the room. There were three men, not counting one that Sarah had taken to a comfortable, cosy corner and to whom she was archly whispering. Jerry was standing by the piano, looking over some popular songs with a short, chunky youth who could make the keys jingle in strange, barbaric dissonances that made up an irresistible syncopation which seemed to intoxicate more than the contents of the cellarette. The ever-present Wigs and Davy hailed Joy, pressed a “tall one” upon her, and sat her on the sofa. “I knew you couldn’t stand Boston’s Best for a steady diet,” said Wigs. “You struck the right time, too, Joy; Jerry’s gotten herself quite tightly edged to-night, a thing that never happens as you know, and since we’ve got the wine and women, she’s going to favour us with song.” The chunky boy at the piano was shaking out some bars of eerie ragtime. Jerry turned, swaying, hands on hips. Her eyes were shining with almost polished rays; they wandered over the room in an impersonal, professional smile. It was doubtful if she saw Joy at all. Her lips parted in an avid, gamin grin, and hardly opening her teeth, she jutted forth the words of the song: “I wanted some men and I sought them I made myself up like a doll The other girls, oh, how I fought them! They handed it to me for gall— I wanted some men and I’ve got them Turned down five bids for dinner last night But somehow they’re not what I thought them And somehow I know it’s not right.” The fiery, vivid personality that was Jerry’s leaped out through scarcely a motion as she sang, insolently, through her teeth, her red lips always curved into that goblin grin. She was swinging into the chorus now, a chorus of dizzying syncopation the notes of which she followed not at all, speaking the words with a little drag at inconsequential moments— “Ten men down—and more to go— Other girls get them—if you are slow— This life is short So don’t get caught You’ve got to have strings to your bow!” “No sense to words of any popular songs nowadays,” complained Davy. “But Jerry puts ’em over—she’s the Queen of the Cabaret Artists.”