The door opened slowly. I had a sudden idea that everything had gone slow-motion—even from the tense waiting look in Judy’s face as she watched the door, like waiting in the movies for the headless phantom to appear.
It appeared at last, but it wasn’t headless. It was my friend Vicki Ray the hat check girl, and the reason she was moving slowly is that she couldn’t possibly have done anything else and kept her superb and very formal balance.
She steadied herself against the door frame for an instant, closed the door with tremendous carefulness, and came in. She gave us a gallant little salute from the brim of her white hat and sat down so cautiously that she wouldn’t have broken if she had been glass. Then she just sat there, looking at Judy, and Judy looking at her.
Neither of them spok
