Gentlemen prefer blondes - Anita Loos [19]
April 29th:
Yesterday was quite a day. I mean Dorothy and I were getting ready to go shopping and the telephone rang and they said that Lady Francis Beekman was down stairs and she wanted to come up stairs. So I really was quite surprised. I mean I did not know what to say, so I said all right. So then I told Dorothy and then we put our brains together. Because it seems that Lady Francis Beekman is the wife of the gentleman called Sir Francis Beekman who was the admirer of mine in London who seemed to admire me so much that he asked me if he could make me a present of a diamond tiara. So it seemed as if his wife must have heard about it, and it really seemed as if she must have come clear over from London about it. So there was a very very loud knock at the door so we asked her to come in. So Lady Francis Beekman came in and she is a quite large size lady who seems to resemble Bill Hart quite a lot. I mean Dorothy thinks that Lady Francis Beeckman resembles Bill Hart quite a lot, only she really thinks she looks more like Bill Hart’s horse. So it seems that she said that if I did not give her back the diamond tiara right away, she would make quite a fuss and she would ruin my reputation. Because she said that something really must be wrong about the whole thing. Because it seems that Sir Francis Beekman and she have been married for 35 years and the last present he gave to her was a wedding ring. So Dorothy spoke up and she said “Lady you could no more ruin my girl friends reputation than you could sink the Jewish fleet.” I mean I was quite proud of Dorothy the way she stood up for my reputation. Because I really think that there is nothing so wonderful as two girls when they stand up for each other and help each other a lot. Because no matter how vigarous Lady Francis Beekman seems to be, she had to realize that she could not sink a whole fleet full of ships. So she had to stop talking against my reputation.
So then she said she would drag it into the court and she would say that it was undue influence. So I said to her, “If you wear that hat into a court, we will see if the judge thinks it took an undue influence to make Sir Francis Beekman look at a girl.” So then Dorothy spoke up and Dorothy said “My girl friend is right, Lady. You have got to be the Queen of England to get away with a hat like that.” So Lady Francis Beekman seemed to get quite angry. So then she said she would send for Sir Francis Beekman where he suddenly went to Scotland, to go hunting when he found out that Lady Francis Beekman had found out. So Dorothy said “Do you mean that you have left Sir Francis Beekman loose with all those spendthrifts down in Scotland?” So Dorothy said she would better look out or he would get together with the boys some night and simply massacre a haypenny. I mean