And Audrey Valentine's world missed her. It refused to accept her
poverty as an excuse, and clamored for her. It wanted her to sit
again at a piano, somewhere, anywhere, with a lighted cigaret on
the music-rack, and sing her husky, naive little songs. It wanted
her cool audacity. It wanted her for week-end parties and bridge,
and to canter on frosty mornings on its best horses and make slaves
of the park policemen, so that she might jump forbidden fences. It
wanted to see her oust its grinning chauffeurs, and drive its best
cars at their best speed.
Audrey Valentine leading a cloistered life! Impossible! Selfish!
And Audrey was not cut out for solitude. She did not mind poverty.
She found it rather a relief to acknowledge what had always been
the fact. But she did mind loneliness. And her idea of making
herself over into something useful was not working out particularly
well. She spent two hours a day, at a down-town school, struggling
with shorthand, and her writing-table was always littered with
papers covered with queer hooks and curves, or with typed sheets
beginning:
"Messrs Smith and Co.
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