"Remind me to renew my lease on the penthouse this week, Joe," she said. "After twenty years this place is beginning to be interesting." CHAPTER V Meanwhile, Julie Pillsworth had not only lost her poise, but a shocking amount of bodily moisture; a good full-lunged cry in the private confines of her bed had done nothing to erase the memory of her husband disporting himself loosely about the landscape with a strange redhead under the very noses of their neighbors. Julie dared not draw any conclusions concerning the affair of the trellis; there were too many emotions involved, and she, having formed her marriage on what she firmly believed to be a solid foundation of logic and sound theory, was not practiced in the ways of emotion. Suddenly, emotionally, Julie was in a strange land without a guide, at a ball game without a program, up a creek without a paddle. Briefly, she was no end confused and upset. Perhaps Julie might have eventually reached the right conclusion and even done the right thing, for in the back of her mind was the vague feeling that Marc's sudden burst of misbehavior was the result of some obscure failing in herself. She might have, that is, if May Springer and Jewel Drummer hadn't appeared on the scene just as her thoughts were turning in that direction. May was a small, bird-boned, heron-faced woman with a voice as slight and chirping as the mentality which it served. Jewel was the other side of the picture: dog-jawed, thunder voiced and overwhelmingly double-breasted. These two had long since elected themselves to be Julie's "best friends," and now that Julie was in trouble they had come to help. In short, this was just the chance they had been waiting for. The three women watched tensely as the maid left the tea things on the table and departed from the living room through the hall. Julie instantly returned her tear-stained face to her handkerchief. May and Jewel exchanged a look and hitched themselves forward in their chairs in the manner of a pair of ditch diggers rolling up their sleeves to go to work. "I wouldn't hesitate a second," May piped. "I'd start divorcing the bum right now. The time to let him have it is the first minute you hear about the other woman. And, honey, you _saw_ her! I did too for that matter. When that awful clatter started, and I looked out of my window and saw your husband with that woman...! Well! I'll testify, honey! They'll never shut me up." "Me too, dear," Jewel put in heavily from beyond the rolling hills of her bosom. "Of course I didn't actually see anything, but I heard it all. The only thing for you to do is just close up the house and go to Reno while it's all fresh in your mind. And let your lawyer do the talking. Remember that." "I know you feel better, now that you've decided," May said. "Jewel and I will help you get your affairs with the house straightened up." She leaned forward and tapped Jewel lightly on the knee. "Won't we, Jewel?"