"'Whatever is worth doing is worth doing well,' I used to write in a copy book. Well, that's the way I feel about this. To me, anything is worth doing to escape the cotton stockings and lisle next to your skin. I admit I never sit down and _think_. You know, sit down and take stock of myself. What's the use thinking? Live! Yes," mused Hester, her arms in a wreath over her head, "I think I'd do it all over again. There's not been so many, at that. Three. The first was a salesman. He'd have married me, but I couldn't see it on six thousand a year. Nice fellow, too--an easy spender in a small way, but I couldn't see a future to ladies' neckwear. I hear he made good later in munitions. Al was a pretty good sort, too, but tight. How I hate tightness! I've been pretty lucky in the long run, I guess." "Did I say 'hard as nails'?" said Kitty, grotesquely fitting a cigarette in the aperture of her mouth. "I apologize. Why, alongside of you a piece of flint is morning cereal. Haven't you ever had a love affair? I've been married twice--that's how chicken hearted I can be. Haven't you ever pumped a little faster just because a certain some one walked into the room?" "Once." "Once what?" "I liked a fellow. Pretty much. A blond. Say, he was blond! I always think to myself, Kit, next to Gerald, you've got the bluest eyes under heaven. Only, his didn't have any dregs." "Thanks, dearie." "I sometimes wonder about Gerald. I ought to drive over while we're out here. Poor old Gerald Fishback!" "Sweet name--'Fishback.' No wonder you went wrong, dearie." "Oh, I'm not getting soft. I saw my bed and made it, nice and soft and comfy, and I'm lying on it without a whimper." "You just bet your life you made it up nice and comfy! You've the right idea; I have to hand that to you. You command respect from them. Lord! Ed would as soon fire a teacup at me as not. But, with me, it pays. The last one he broke he made up to me with my opal-and-diamond beetle." "Wouldn't wear an opal if it was set next to the Hope diamond." "Superstitious, dearie?" "Unlucky. Never knew it to fail." "Not a superstition in my bones. I don't believe in walking under ladders or opening an umbrella in the house or sitting down with thirteen, but, Lordy! never saw the like with you! Thought you'd have the hysterics over that little old vanity mirror you broke that day out at the races." "Br-r-r! I hated it." "Lay easy, dearie. Nothing can touch you the way he's raking in the war contracts." "Great--isn't it?" "Play for a country home, dearie. I always say real estate and jewelry are something in the hand. Look ahead in this game, I always say." "You just bet I've looked ahead." "So have I, but not enough." "Somehow, I never feel afraid. I could get a job to-morrow if I had to." "Say, dearie, if it comes to that, with twenty pounds off me, there's not a chorus I couldn't land back in." "I worked once, you know, in Lichtig's import shop." "Fifth Avenue?"