Effie's budget bulged here and there
with such pathetic items as hand-embroidered blouses, thick club
steaks, and parquet tickets for Maude Adams. That you may
visualize her at once I may say that Effie looked twenty-four--from
the rear (all women do in these days of girlish simplicity in hats
and tailor-mades); her skirts never sagged, her shirtwaists were
marvels of plainness and fit, and her switch had cost her sixteen
dollars, wholesale (a lady friend in the business). Oh, there was
nothing tragic about Effie. She had a plump, assured style, a keen
blue eye, a gift of repartee, and a way of doing her hair so that
the gray at the sides scarcely showed at all. Also a knowledge of
corsets that had placed her at the buying end of that important
department at Spiegel's. Effie knew to the minute when coral beads
went out and pearl beads came in, and just by looking at her
blouses you could tell when Cluny died and Irish was born. Meeting
Effie on the street, you would have put her down as one of the many
well-dressed, prosperous-looking women shoppers--if you hadn't
looked at her feet. Veteran clerks and policemen cannot disguise
their feet.
Effie Bauer's reason for not marrying when a girl was the same
as that of most of the capable, wise-eyed, good-looking women one
finds at the head of departments.
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