Chapter VII: Part 7

“‘Lace’!” Beulah appeared shocked. “She bought that netting at the ten cent store to cover her trade with, when she gets that Cleopatrine feeling! No _wonder_ all the cab drivers around Pennsylvania Station are looking tired these days!”

“Shish!” said Docky. “Look now, dearie. She’s terrible from the front. Do you notice her fallen chest?... And what do you think of the back? And oh!—what ugly hands! I’m sure those hands have snitched many pieces of silver in _her_ time!”

“I don’t care how much silver she has snitched,” said Beulah, “but I _do_ hope she’ll keep her dirty mitts off Miriam. Really, Docky, you don’t honestly believe that Miriam might be jam, now do you?”

Docky leaned over and spoke into Beulah’s ear.

“Don’t tell anyone, but I’m really sure. I really shouldn’t have told you, but since you have thrown so much my way in the past——”

“Christ!” said Daisy, fidgeting with her lavaliere. “Sophie really makes me ill. She always looks as though she’s straight from the washtub.”

“True,” said Docky, “from the shanty on the other side of the tracks. It’s a shame for her to have money, with me dodging creditors like _mad_! Look at her trying to be elegant, wiping her nose with her soft, raggy wrist—and dearie, her nose isn’t running from a cold. _That_ one’s been broken down for years and years. Old saddley ass! She looks as though she had three pillows in her rear!”

“It _is_ indecent,” agreed Beulah. “And she doesn’t have fallen arches for nothing. She’s been cruising _most_ of her life.”

“That she has!” said Docky. “My God!” Docky leaned forward excitedly. “She’s picking up her skirts! Do you see those varicose veins on her leg? They stand out like the knots on a pinetree!”

Drewena was now urging Sophie to give the first “number” of the evening. But Sophie, partly drunk from her brief, but thrilling escapade with the cab driver, kept showing a bruise on her shoulder.

“It hit me! The person really hit me! It was all over that cage I brought for my number. Will you have Patsy bring me the cage I left with her? I’ll be in the powder room.”

When she had gone, Drewena explained to Miriam that each guest always gave a little act.

Miriam was thunderstruck.

“I don’t know anything to do. It’s impossible for me.”

“Just anything,” said Drewena, with composure. “It doesn’t have to be much.”

Miriam thought a moment, observing the heavy beam above her, the high ceiling and the shadows.

“Was that Tai whom I saw peeping out into the hall a moment ago? The child looked Indo-Chinese. If you’d lend him to me....”

“I can’t risk the child,” said Drewena slowly. “His father nursed me. And next to you, Miriam, I love him better than anyone but Deane.” Drewena gave a queer smile. “_She_ has a portion of the roundtable of my mind that no one, not even you, my dearest, can fathom.”

“I won’t hurt the child,” said Miriam earnestly. “He’ll think it’s a lot of fun. You can see what I’ll do!”

“It isn’t that,” said Drewena, flushing. Then, “All right. Tai is yours for the trick. What else do you need?”

“A man with powerful shoulders, and a rope,” said Miriam. “And have the orchestra play loudly while I work.”

Suddenly Drewena laughed.

“Oh, you are really good!—I see it now. You’ve always just pretended to be an impossible person. I believe you’d cry easily.”

“Yes, I cry very easily,” Miriam agreed.

“Have you seen Roberta?” asked Drewena suddenly. “She was asking about you.”

“You mean Roberts? No, I haven’t.”

“Well, she’s in a corner, pouting about something. It’s either you, or Carrie—perhaps even myself. She is in a terrible mood to-night. Please don’t have a scene with her. And please, Miriam, remember, this _is_ a drag. I don’t care how masculine they may seem to you,—call them by their feminine names, or address them impersonally as ‘she.’ Do you see Beulah over there in her lavender gown?... He was thirty-nine and three times married before he recognized himself for what he was. Being a flexible character, he slipped quite naturally into his present rôle—that of a tight-fisted, gossipy old dowager, but behind the intermittent lechery of his old and experienced eyes he is a strong man and a gentleman. No one in the everyday world even suspects. They’ve marked him down, in fact, as a devil with the ladies. Kate is a harsher type. He married one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen. She bore him a lovely boy. Then one day, Kate became irritated over a trifle and threw his wife across the room. Fortunately, she was not injured; but he went into a ‘break’ or nervous explosion. From that, into a depressive state and out of it in a wild hysteria. Then came his first love—his consulting psychiatrist.... The pattern was woven swiftly enough—and Kate, too, slipped into her niche, not so pleasant a one as Beulah’s, who takes them as she finds them. Kate is now searching desperately. You will not?—” Drewena hesitated. “Forgive me, Miriam. And now, let us visit Roberta. Please give her a smile and I know she will feel better. We must hurry. Sophie will soon be ready for her act, and you must prepare your magic.”

They walked across the floor, both sated—one by boredom, the other by necessity. When they approached Roberta, she stood up, one hand touching the pearls at her throat, the other holding her muff.

“Drewena,” she said quietly, with slow sarcasm, “it would be a pleasure to meet your friend. She is very pretty in yellow. Did Carrie make the dress?” Roberta’s lip curled. Once more her hand moved convulsively in her muff.

Without a word Miriam stepped up close and running her fingers down Roberta’s arm, slipped her own hand well inside the tiny fur. Roberta shook her off; but Miriam, now looking at her friend as though intrigued, said slowly, “Perhaps you’d like another cocktail, Roberta. It will warm you. Your hands are like ice.”

Drewena looked on, but finding the scene too difficult to interpret, shook her head sadly, murmured something about the program and led Miriam away.

Roberta, still brooding, was left alone in her corner.

Standing by the piano, Drewena clapped her hands and the crowd grew quiet.

“First,” she said, “since Sophie is not ready, I’ll ask Daisy, who has come in her perennial form of the ‘Prairie Flower’ to sing for us.”

Docky sniffed and whispered to Beulah, “Look at her! She doesn’t even have to make up for the part! My dear, do I _have_ to listen to that miserable dentist do her wild flower act again? It’s just been repeated and repeated till I could simply scream! Imagine, trying to carry on at _her_ age when we _all_ know she’s well into the menopause!”

Daisy, however, tripped across the floor, her black taffeta dress flouncing around her wide hips. After bowing to the somewhat bored and suffering crowd, she put her hands to her shoulders and bent her knees. In a stringy voice she sang—

“I’m a little Prairie Flower
Growing wilder every hour!
No one here to care about me—
I’m as wild as wild can be!”

Then she put one hand on the top of her head, and the other on her hip. Jigging up and down to the music of the piano, she began to rotate on her toes. The frayed voice continued—

“I’m a little patchwork quilt
All my edges trimmed in gilt!
No one here to cuddle with me—
I’m as cuddly as can be!”

There was loud, determined clapping, and Daisy ran off the floor, her face suffused with blushes.

“Perfectly grand, dear,” said one of the guests. “So much sweeter than the _first_ time you gave it.”

“_That_ won’t last,” said Beulah, looking at Daisy who had returned to the room and was holding someone’s hand, obviously searching the face of her friend for signs of approval. “It won’t last—I’ve been all through it.”

In the alcove, six musicians wearing short red skirts, white blouses, white silk stockings and red sandals, were holding their instruments in readiness. They were camping among themselves, though the one with the clarinet looked just a trifle uncomfortable. Drewena asked them to play a slow drag and they began “Mood Indigo,” the harpsichordist tapping her red sandal on the side of her chair, each musician looking oddly like his instrument. Drewena favored a tempered arrangement of popular music in the modern idiom. For a simplified expression of this type of instrumentation she had chosen the curious grouping of harpsichord, vibraphone, harp, bassoon, clarinet and drums. She felt that any brass, even muted, would destroy the exotic, passionate tenor of the music achieved by the combination of strings and reeds (the drums having been modulated by casings) and affected also by the arranger, who had found the predominant oriental theme from listening to Drewena herself at the piano.

Some of the dancers walked idly, in as slow a tempo as possible. Others, however, flew around the floor in a febrile reaction to the sometimes sweet, sometimes wild expression of the orchestra. Carrie’s popularity was noticeable. She flew from partner to partner. But her dancing was a little heavy, and her large, moist eyes followed Miriam.

Drewena held on to Miriam tightly, preferring to be led.

“Your arm is like a rock, Miriam,” she whispered.

This winter idyll was drenched in an arbor of delicate flowers that grew from the basketball scents of the dancers. A cloth seemed to cover Miriam’s eyes; but as she opened them, it was Drewena’s white-tinted hair that confused her. The soft waves and ringlets covered Miriam’s arm and the paths that had intrigued her so long were now undivided. Nevertheless, as she breathed of Drewena’s cheek, that which had been unrevealed before came swiftly in an explicable panic. She stopped in the middle of the floor. Her mouth was dry.

“I’d better prepare for my act,” she said quite suddenly.

Without a word Drewena broke from her, and Miriam followed her quick steps through the archway.

“How irresponsible you are to-night, my Miriam,” she breathed, a grave smile darkening her eyes. Then she called Tai.

The child ran into the powder room and bowed reverently before her.

“You will obey my friend for a trick,” she said. “It will not take long.” She placed her hand for a second on his shoulder before she left.

“It will be fun, Tai,” said Miriam, noting the child’s frightened look.

Tai bowed again.

“I shall do as you bid, mistress,” he whispered, his piquant face quite solemn.

Just then a footman entered with a good hemp rope. Miriam rapidly explained the routine of the act, asked the man if his shoulders were strong, gave a simple instruction to Tai, finishing just as the orchestra ceased. The second number was being announced as she returned to the drawing room.

Someone screamed very faintly and Docky looked at Beulah; for, radiant with smiles and dressed in long white tights, Sophie posed in the doorway, a wild-looking pigeon in her hand. She began to pivot slowly.

Docky raised her scented handkerchief to her nose.

“_Pee-yoo!_” she said softly. “Here comes the pigeon-woman! She’s gone pervert on us!”

“Yes,” agreed Beulah, and began to hum. “‘_We’re camping to-night on the old campground._’”

A person near them who was dressed in a hoopskirt made in the shape of a bell, stood up, the bell chiming once, twice, before she adjusted her bodice.

“Your clapper rings indiscriminately,” said Beulah, in a mild tone.

“It is rusty from lack of use, my sweet,” replied Angela, who was an undertaker.

“It is atrophied,” said Docky. “But let’s watch the dance.”

Sophie, who had waited until all attention was centered upon her, now leaped from the doorway, flinging out the pigeon which was tied to her wrist by a string. Upon alighting, one of her thin legs bent under her, then she began to dance. She pirouetted and waved her flabby hips while the bird tried desperately to escape. Once it descended upon her head and lifted the transformation. The guests had a fleeting glimpse of a pink, bald dome. Occasionally Sophie’s joints cracked. The effect was macabre.

“Mercy!” said Beulah. “If _my_ bones were in that condition, I’d have brought my little can of lubricating oil. She positively drowns out the orchestra!”

“‘Little’ can, did you say?” timidly questioned Daisy, who had rejoined the group.

Beulah did not turn her head. Only the bulges on her neck seemed to stiffen and bulge out further.

But Sophie was now in difficulty. The pigeon had become terrified and was jerking at the string. All pretense of dancing stopped and Sophie stood there, feebly waving her arms. Pitying her, Drewena stepped to her side, closed one hand gently around the panicky bird and slipped the noose from its leg. Out in the dim corridor she opened a window, touched her cheek to the bird’s soft, rumpled feathers and, with a sigh, tossed it into the darkness.

Miriam had returned to the powder room when Sophie came in, near to hysteria, weeping.

“Oh, heavens!” she cried, while the mascara streamed down her cheeks. “It stooled on me!” And she wiped the top of her bare head with a handkerchief.

“That’s nothing—a seagull once did the same for me,” said Miriam. “You can’t get it off that way. Why don’t you stick your head under the shower?”

“You’re insulting,” said Sophie, drying her eyes.

Miriam left the room in disgust.

Another number was on. Carrie, her fingers fan-shaped over her heart, was singing “_Mother Macree_” in a soft voice, high and clear. The strange tonal quality was like that of a contralto.

Drewena was accompanying her. And along the rows of gossips there was now complete silence. Miriam noticed that both Beulah and Docky were holding handkerchiefs to their eyes, and when the last words—“God keep you and bless you, Mother Macree” trailed off, Miriam watched a solid, tremulous emotion sweep the crowd. Only Kate, openly defiant to any sentiment, poured a drink down her throat and looked at the others with disdain.

This time, as they danced, Miriam sneaked the footman in through the back, and hoisted him to the long beam, one end of which lay in shadow. Once more, she whispered instructions to her assistant, then went for Tai. The music ceased and she could hear Drewena quieting the crowd.

Then Miriam entered the room. She did not walk with the air of one experienced in drag, but her stalking, feline movements seemed even more proper. Several paces behind her came Tai, a rope over one tiny shoulder, his eyes lowered. He still wore the golden tunic and it gleamed against his little body as he held out the rope to Miriam. She took it, coiling it sailor-fashion on the floor, then hurled one end to the ceiling where it held, in a rim of shadow. Immediately Tai grabbed it and climbed upward to the beam, apparently on a rope which was in no way supported. Only the magician could see the tensed form of the footman holding the slight weight of the child. Then Tai disappeared. Miriam lifted her arms and the rope fell in waves over her shoulders. She dropped it, turned to the crowd and solemnly picked up her train. Tai, smiling and bowing, ran forth from its folds, and held out his arms to Drewena.

The crowd was charmed; but Drewena, furious, caught up the child and hurrying with him through the corridor, took him into his own room and laid him upon his own bed.

For a moment her hot cheek rested against the child who petted her, saying nothing. Then she swept into the powder room where she knew she would find Miriam. Still furious, she faced her friend.

“Miriam,” she cried, “that was a coarse trick.” Her eyes were narrowed and a drop of blood was welling out of the corner of her lip where she had bitten herself. “What made you do it?”

Miriam inhaled the smoke of her cigarette.

“We don’t think alike, Drewena,” she said reflectively at last. “There was nothing coarse in the act. It is a good trick.”

“Under your skirts, Miriam!” said Drewena, her deep blue eyes watching her friend intensely.

Miriam shrugged.

“You and I have a different attitude toward such things, I fear. I hope the child feels the way I do about it. He is quite innocent—as apparently am I.” Then for an instant Miriam’s eyes became colder than Drewena’s. “Of course, I cannot help, nor can I control your interpretations.” A dark, ugly vein showed vertically now in the center of Miriam’s forehead. Drewena’s white velvet gown seemed to turn blood-red before her.

Even in her own anger, Drewena was amazed. Surely these could not be the features of her friend! She watched Miriam as she turned and walked to the ottoman where she sat down, breathing heavily. A tremor passed through her body and she sat, looking straight ahead. Fascinated, Drewena saw the vein in Miriam’s forehead diminish at last and her features become natural again. A little frightened, she went over and put her hand on the shoulder of her friend.

“It’s just that I love both of you so much, Miriam,” she said. “I was jealous of you both. Please, forgive me.” Her hand was trembling. “And now,” she added, trying to compose herself, “I must announce Kate’s dance. Won’t you come out?—she dances divinely.”

“Later, Drewena,” Miriam said in a despondent voice. And when Drewena had gone, still looking disturbed, Miriam lay down on her back on the couch and stared at the ceiling with both eyes open wide. Her thoughts were jumbled and confused in this strange atmosphere. She had felt singular reactions. Desires that were new to her had come upon her without warning. Were her concepts changing? Or had they lain dormant, awaiting only the right moment to make her aware of another facet in her individuality?... And did this constitute a shame to God? Should the mind reject what the spirit had planted?... Was this not a possibility for every man, as well as the necessity for the cultivated group outside?... It was obscure to Miriam, lying there. Her mind was tired from these perplexing questions. Such problems as these charged without apparent reason. She stood up, held the sides of her head which now ached violently. Slowly she went to the doorway in time to hear Drewena announce Kate’s dance.

The crowd applauded vigorously and Miriam could feel again the mass excitement.

“As usual,” continued Drewena, “Kate has adapted a native dance-ritual to her own choreography. To-night she will interpret the fire dance of a tribe of Andean people.”

Drewena stepped back as Patsy came from the corridor with a smoldering, perfumed brazier which she placed upon the floor, now cleared for a space in the center. The music began, the muted drums became more prominent, and Kate walked from the shadows of the alcove to the brazier, standing quietly beside it, her eyes lifted upward, watching the smoke, her hands palm outward before her. There was a leather strap around her forehead and a leather wristlet above the left hand. On her upper arm was a metal band which had the dull gleam of copper.

The high knee movement as she circled the brazier showed the control and discipline of her deeply tanned legs, and the supple flexibility of a professional dancer. Her bare feet slapped stiffly against the wooden floor as she continued to circle the smoke which was now rising like a slender blue pillar. As she went round the coals, her body rotated while circling, so that at times she faced the low flames and at others had her back to them, her body always arched, her circled head often coming close to the flickering brazier. A soft, faun-colored wrap that looked like chamois swung from Kate’s waist; but on one side it had been cut in from the hips where the fine webbing of her dark jockstrap covered her.

Among the excited watchers, none was more affected than Beulah. She kept wiping her mouth and whispering, “My God!” to Docky. Docky, however, for once, was too fascinated to reply.

Intoxicated by the wild music and by the incense which now pervaded the room, even more by the dance itself, Kate continued her steps with more abandon, her copper body whirling with such rapidity that she seemed to be weaving amid the smoke, making it catch her enthusiasm as it leaned toward her at every angle until it spiraled upward as though part of the dance. A bolo knife with a polished bone handle rested against the nearby wall and Kate leaped toward it, picked it up swiftly and fastened the looped thong around her wrist. Then as the song of the Firebird[2] grew wilder, she swung the heavy, shining blade as though cutting her way through vines and wet, tall grass, until the knife sang in the air and Kate’s slim, powerful body weaved from side to side in her savage desire to get once more to the flames. Her teeth were drawn back as though fighting with intangible yet formidable spirits, and her handsome face was set in a perfect mask of determination to get to her own beckoning god—the crimson soul of the flame—life-giving and protecting. At last she reached the genie of the fire-bowl, her face, arms and belly streaming with sweat, the bolo knife held rigidly over her head and her left hand supporting the sinews of the wrist which held it.

This time, instead of circling the brazier, she leaped over it, held herself suspended one fraction of a second before she dropped lightly on the other side, wheeled instantly and repeated the floating movement until the blur of her body became one with the smoke. Suddenly, to the horror of the guests, there was a soft whisper, like fire through damp reeds, and the odor of burning hair mixed with the scent of the pitch. As the crowd held its breath sharply, Kate let out a fierce, sensuous shout of triumph, and whirled in eccentric half-turns into the shadows of the alcove....

There was no applause. The crowd was stunned by this amazing, painful exhibition into deep silence. Docky abstractedly removed and wiped her glass eye again, and Beulah dabbed futilely at her aging face. But their attention was now quickly drawn to the corner where Roberta had been sitting. She was standing in such an imperious manner that everyone turned toward her in astonishment. The broken rays from a chandelier nearby revealed her beautiful, tragic face as she said with the elegance of contempt, “And now—let _me_ speak!” Her resonate voice filled the deep silence, and she crossed the floor to a place where she could face the crowd more fully.

Rather nervously, Drewena hurried to her and whispered something; but Roberta’s desperate expression stopped her from speaking further and she drew back, more than ever perplexed. At this, Miriam, watching the blue fox muff attentively, walked quietly to Roberta until her eyes said, “Stop!” which Miriam did, a few paces away.

Then, in level voice and without gesture, never taking her eyes from Miriam’s face, Roberta said—

There on the sheets, my lad,
With small gold arms and hair tossed back
Most carelessly,
She bears the quality we lack.
And older, perhaps weary, I’m some sad.

Here in my arms, my lad,
With strong gold wrists and hair tossed back
In liberty,
You bear the quality I lack.
And older, perhaps weary, I’m some sad.

But in my glass, sweet lad,
I see thy dreams, thy lady’s,
And thy profligacy.
And _know_ the quality you lack....
Yet still I’m older, perhaps weary, and some sad.

There was a buzz of disapproval as Roberta finished. “Well,” said Beulah, “we may have _lived_ in our time, but we _never_ carried on like _that_! In those pastel days,” and she tapped Docky’s arm with her fan, parting her lips with a snap, “we _did_ carry on a bit—but this is _too_ much! I feel like entering the philanthropies. They’re so much quieter.”

“Yes, yes,” said Docky, “I tried it once. But it’s too expensive, Beulah. And don’t expect, dear, too much of your personality. We’re getting wrinkles. Soon the lovelies won’t _look_ at us for less than a dollar! How your quarter has worked as long as it has, is beyond me!”

Roberta had returned to the solitude of her corner when there was a terrified screech from Patsy, and Rio, completely drunken, in servant’s skirts held high above his knees, lurched into the drawing room. He stood there just inside the doorway, swaying and looking around at the gathering.

“Whores!” he shouted stridently, raising one heavy brown arm in his anger. “You lousy, campy sons-of-bitches!” He forced his risqué Robin Hood hat down to his ears, his shoulders nearly popping out of his dress, and his great legs encased in red football stockings which were rolled just beneath his hairy knees. Then he saw Miriam looking at him without amusement as she leaned against the piano. Rio walked slowly to her, his arms hanging like lead. As he approached, Miriam did not stir and there was a contemptuous look upon her face. Rio moved his lips in an obscene gesture and pretended to whimper.

“Could a old ’ooman show ’ee the sights o’ Cooney Island? I’ll do no traffic with ’ee.”

Miriam smiled, for in his hatred Rio had mimicked his character with perfection. Even the crowd began to think it was a camp when suddenly, without warning, Rio struck Miriam who fell slowly to the floor. Drewena noticed that she looked like Tai, the way she was curled. With a low scream, Drewena ran swiftly from the room while Rio looked on with contempt. But his expression changed as he saw his friend still lying open-mouthed, a little absent, upon the floor, one slippered foot thrust out from the folds of the yellow dress.

Drewena now returned silently. She was carrying a long, gilded whip. She held it firmly in her delicate hands, the barbs away from her, ready to be snapped. As Rio bent over his friend, he started to kneel. But before his knee was completely bent, Drewena brought the thorned end of the gold scourge straight down across his shoulders, the faint swish modified by Rio’s cry of pain and surprise; for as the flesh was ripped from his back there was the sound of crushed bubbles. In his agony, he rushed at the white-gowned hostess, but Drewena, as though in a fantastic ballet, dodged him and pivoted so swiftly that when Rio passed, the wrench and throb of his sickening pain as he was struck again, brought forth a groan from everyone in the room. Drewena stood poised for the next thrust, and her expression brought Rio on once more, his great hands searching for her through his agony. Again she avoided him and turned to lay the hooked rods into his lacerated flesh. Rio, in all his bravery could stand no more and fell upon his face, his arms reaching out like claws. Cool and mindful of her action, Drewena struck him again until the blood formed in small pools by his side.

Roberta still stood silently in the shadow of her corner. Docky, who had been watching her, had seen with her one alert, keen eye, a single movement and a flash of steel as Roberta withdrew her hand from her muff, then returned it stoically when Rio fell.

This time, as Drewena lifted her arm, Miriam sat up. There was no movement, no shudder from the prone figure on the floor.

“Wait, Drew!” called Miriam. “Leave the man alone!”

Drewena looked at her incredulously.

“This beast knocked you down,” she said, “and without reason.”

She turned again to strike, but Miriam arose unsteadily and held Drewena’s arm.

Drewena dropped the whip.

“Do you, then, consider _this_ more important?” she asked nodding toward Rio who was still lying quietly, his blouse in shreds upon his blood-soaked back.

“He is my friend,” said Miriam. “We are going home.”

“Our rendezvous?” breathed Drewena.

“Will wait,” said Miriam.

Then, kneeling down by the stricken man whose face showed no expression as she turned it toward her, Miriam repeated, “It’s Martin, Rio, ... Martin ... we are going home.” Half lifting, half imploring, Martin got Rio to his feet, and as the man leaned heavily against him, they crossed the floor amid the horrified silence of the crowd.

Then “Boor!” ... “Common!” ... “Stiff!” ... came to Martin’s ears as he bore the weight of his friend onward to the doorway. At last, he could stand no more of it.

“You!” he cried, turning. “You! Leave us alone!—my friend and me!”

In the hall, Martin looked at Rio’s thrashed back.

“We’d better go to my room,” he said. “Call a cab for us, Patsy.” And he threw Deane’s coat over Rio.... As they left, they could hear the sound of music and dancing.

Carrie had gone into hysterics. Her high heel had caught in her train and ripped it open. She was rushing to the powder room when Drewena saw her. The hostess followed her guest through the groups of dancers and found Carrie on the ottoman, crying brokenly. Drewena closed and locked the door. Her lips were bitter—to have revealed herself and lost her caste over a graceless Polynesian was unbearable! She went through a hidden paneled doorway into Tai’s room and lightly kissed his fingers, listening to the sweet sound of his even breathing. Then opening the door into the corridor, she called the footman who brought Patsy to her at once.

“We are leaving, Patsy,” she said. “Arrange for an early departure. We will go to Paris. Cable Jacques to meet us.”

Patsy bowed.

“May I say ‘thank God,’ Madame? I speak reverently.”

Drewena laughed, and for a moment looked into Patsy’s faithful eyes.

“Arrange things quickly,” she repeated as the attendant left.

Again Drewena tiptoed past the sleeping, tired baby and entered the powder room, closing the panel behind her and ignoring the pounding on the door.

Carrie still cried, her tears dampening the golden pillows of the couch.

“Miriam left without asking me to dance,” she kept on sobbing.

Drewena picked her up bodily and making a cradle out of her own slender arms, held the unhappy girl. Singing a soft, melodic lullaby, she rocked Carrie, thinking, “It is time once more, for me to go. Ah, Martin!—indiscriminate man!—you see beauty only through your prostitution.... How I envy you!... How I ...” Drewena’s thick tears clung to her lashes and did not fall on Carrie who, now rocked asleep, held tightly to Drewena’s comforting breast.

_CHAPTER XVII_

On the low coffee table in front of Deane was a bowl of yellow roses. She had broken off one of the blossoms and was slowly, abstractedly pulling it to pieces. Listlessly she allowed the golden petals to fall to the floor.

“Why didn’t you tell me of Drew’s love letter earlier, Martin?” she asked.

“It was an invitation,” he answered. “I shouldn’t have shown it at all.”

Deane lit a cigarette nervously.

“But what did you do?—I mean—oh!” she cried out, hiding her face in her hands.

Martin shook his head but did not speak.

“And now,” continued Deane, “you insist on meeting him in the Bowery.”

“Yes,” Martin nodded.

“But it isn’t like Drew to go to such a terrible place. Why did you agree to such a rendezvous?”

“I don’t know, except that he sounded sincere and almost desperate over the phone.”

“How _did_ he sound?” asked Deane. “Remember, I know him.”

“Cool on the surface, but determined,” answered Martin, “and worried—no, not worried; just rather desperate.”

“You _can’t_ go!” cried Deane. “I’ve been driven through the place at night. It’s terrifying; a street of yellow lanterns, and figures huddled in shadow like fallen bric-a-brac.”

“I must go,” said Martin.

“Won’t you stay, for me?”

Martin pressed his hand against his temple.

“Yes, Deane,” he answered at last.

“Thank God!” she said. “There is something cruel in the air to-night.” Then, relieved, she asked, “What happened to Rio?”

Martin regarded her so long and steadily that she flushed, looking a little frightened. At last he answered, “The driver helped me get him into the cab and he slept all the way to my place. When I got him on the bed with his shirt off, he awoke in great pain and I smelt a curious odor that came from his back. I’m sure the thorns of the whip held some kind of drug. Rio said they felt like fishhooks and that he was dizzy a moment before he fell on the floor. It’s odd the way Drew is able to handle him. They fought like two dancers.”

Deane’s face was white and she spoke quietly, as though faint.

“I believe you enjoyed it. How can you be so impersonal?”

Martin put his chin in his hands. How could two people, close in passion, united in mind, lapse into these subtle quarrels? There was no basis. The quarrel was an excuse for something deeper.

Analyzing himself, Martin tried to find the fault within him. Coldly, impersonally, he reviewed the scene, not sparing himself in any way. It was impossible. Deane had subtly forced the argument. Deeply, actually, she had been the aggressor. Martin accepted this with no pleasure. Deane would not intentionally wound him. _Not intentionally._ The phrase gathered meaning. Unconsciously she had created the picture. Why? Nothing on the surface. Nothing of which she was conscious. Rather, some deep-seated demand for pain. Pain for herself and for him. A hunger to wound and be wounded. Martin shook his head helplessly. From his chair he could see Deane sitting quietly serene, apparently indifferent. No. It was a simulated indifference. A strange play with no tenable motive. She must be as aware of the chasm between them as he. Out of this isolation she was drawing something. Something that fed her. It was inexplicable to Martin, for Deane was not a tyrant. She was, however, feminine. And now, the roots of all womanhood shone grimly through. Martin wondered, hesitated, and spoke.

“Deane, are you well? I mean,” he continued, “is it the time of the moon, you know?”

Deane was casual.

“Yes, Martin.” Her voice was tolerant.

“Well, then,” he said, “I should have been more considerate.”

“Don’t be impossible,” Deane exclaimed. “My condition has nothing at all to do with our discussion.”

“I’m inclined to believe, Deane, that it has everything to do with it.”

“That is ridiculous,” she answered, flushing. “It isn’t nice.”

Martin looked at her closely. Deane’s eyes were implacable. Cold, glassed-in, the poisonous shell moved around her. He could not reach her. He thought quickly, fantastically, in his unhappiness. The period. The time of the moon. The time eggs swell and burst into a live stream. In his vision he watched a flood of red, elliptical objects swing in a gigantic arch from heaven to earth. Rolling and whispering through the dark air, they poured in a fast tide past his aching eyes. Redolent of life, acrid with blood, they cried from the great sky-womb into the whirling land. Symbolic of woman’s supremacy, the scarlet bank lightened, faded and died, that it might live again.

“Deane!” cried Martin. “I have seen the secret.”

“What secret, Martin?”

“The secret that you have a secret. That you have a secret that I will never know. That no man will ever know. It is your earth-quality, your heritage as a woman. A glory and a pride, and I have confused it.”

Deane turned her dark, lovely eyes toward him.

“What do you mean?” she asked, and a tiny nerve close to her mouth quivered.

Martin laughed. He had the key. He had turned the key and the glass had broken. Gone was the poisonous mist and doubt from Deane’s eyes.

“I mean that there is a completeness in woman that man will never have,” he said, with quiet conviction. “A secret that man will never fully understand. A secret that women are not aware of—consciously. A pact of woman in the woman that is not revealed until the life-flow moves from their bodies. A pact so complete, so magnificent, that man takes on his true perspective—an interloper.”

Deane turned and hugged him to her. Her hair fell over his shoulder—burned him.

“You’re crazy,” she said. But there was warmth in her voice, and love, and some belief.

“I’m not crazy,” said Martin, kissing her. He held her proudly, and looked at her and kissed her again. He was arrogant of his weakness and proud of her strength. He was that way, whether he was wrong, or right. And there was the man, and there was the woman.

* * * * *

It was quite dark and raining when Martin left Deane’s. The wind, cold and full of smoke, sifted into his nostrils. Halfway down the block he pressed against the wall, partly out of the storm, and lit a cigarette. The glare of the match showed his calm features. Shielding his cigarette from the downpour with his hand, he walked slowly toward the Bowery.

As he turned into Third Avenue he became, once more, aware of a madman’s world. Little dwarfs with sour, twisted faces uplifted in the rain implored with mocking smiles a cigarette; and when he gave it he could feel the jeers carried after him by the wind. Soon he went into Bowery Lane and a blind man stumbled into him.

“You’re not real,” said Martin. “Don’t ever believe that you’re real.”

“What?” cried the man, tapping the street with his stick. “You scoundrel,” he went on, “let me go! I’ll call the damned police, curse them!” And he walked on swiftly, tapping his cane through the mist.

Martin continued along the Bowery until he saw a saloon. He crossed the street and went inside wondering if he had time for a drink. Looking at his watch he saw that he was far too early for his appointment with Drew.

“Step up, Mac,” called out a fat, red-faced gentleman at the bar. “Name it, and I’ll buy it.”

“Thanks,” said Martin. “I’ll have a Bass Ale.”

“To my little lady I left in the west!” said the florid man, a few tears trickling down the side of his pudgy nose. “Ain’t that right, Allie?” he continued, turning to a slab-headed man next to him.

“Yeah,” replied Allie, looking Martin over.

The three men lifted their glasses. Allie belched and took a package of baking soda from his pocket. He dumped a teaspoonful into the remainder of his beer and stirred it. Swallowing this concoction with some effort, he turned to Martin.

“It takes a goddam acid out,” he said earnestly. “It don’t give a gas like a plain goddam beer—” he stopped to belch again.

Martin nodded in agreement.

“I must be going now,” he said, “but before I do, kindly have a drink on me.”

Allie insisted on a third which Martin thanked him for, but put down untouched after seeing the fellow cleverly add an astonishing portion of “mickey” to it.

The men were sullen as he said goodnight, and a little way down the street Martin knew he was being followed by them. He ducked around a corner and into a doorway for a moment, but they were even closer behind him as he started on. Ahead of him four men were huddled on a stoop out of the rain, the light from a yellow lamp streaking their greasy features. Martin thought momentarily of Deane’s weird description, then looking back and seeing Allie and his friend closing in upon him, he went directly to the little group on the doorstep and addressed them earnestly.

“It’s cold,” he said. “A smoke for the soul’s sake,” he continued, handing some cigarettes around, one at a time, to the greedy, shaking fingers. One cigarette was now left in the case, and one man was left out. “I just came down from Heaven, sir,” Martin said to the man quite solemnly. “They told me that worldly goods were without blessing unless freely given.” He handed the cigarette to the man, who backed slightly away, but who accepted it nevertheless. All the men lit up and formed a thinly protective group against Martin, who heard one of them whisper, “The kid’s cracked. Hope he ain’t got no ‘shiv.’ Religion guys go fast wit’ a knife.”

Another, a giant in a white shirt and dark coat said, “Don’t squawk. Lookit a kid’s face in a lamp. God!—a smoke is sweet! Lookit a kid.” They all studied Martin whose uplifted face and exalted eyes seemed far away from them. They talked on quietly among themselves as the rain streaked down Martin’s cheeks unnoticed.

By this time Allie and his companion had reached the little group.

“Hello, Pal,” said Allie, addressing Martin.

Martin did not answer, but turned to his new friends.

“These men are evil,” he said in a deep, resonant tone. “The very lips of the Devil are among us!” Martin lifted his voice into an hysterical pitch as he noticed with curiosity the strange effect of his words upon the men about him.

The giant with the coat carefully hung the dripping garment on a railing, and the dirty shirt and muscular reach of his arms showed in the yellow, muckish light.

“Amen!” he cried, and advanced slowly toward Allie.

“Amen, amen!” echoed through the group behind him. The little fat man ran crying into the heavy rain; but it was with singular detachment that Martin watched the giant he had converted, strike tirelessly the broken form of Allie until the body was dumped, face down, in the swirling length of gutter.

Martin strode to the hard-breathing giant, placed his hand on the fellow’s damp shoulder and said softly, “It was a message! It has been answered.” And he went silently into the rain again.

A square away he paused and looked at a large clock. Once more he saw that in his impatience he was ahead of time. The cold rain had now penetrated the shoulders of his coat and Martin felt the steam rising from his hot body. What did Drew want in this undesirable section? Accustomed as Martin was to certain ways of life, he could not help but feel the disease of this unnatural quarter. He stood on the corner of Bowery and Pell—the Chinese street—a mimeographed edition of its former tong retreat and underground silence. It was true, a small group of thin-lipped, older men with their discreet smoke-houses and their hatchet-men survived. But the list was growing smaller so swiftly that the aroma of opium now had a death-like stench. The neon lights of New America had quickly dispelled the shadows and the soft lanterns of oriental intrigue. Martin looked across the street toward the little theater on the corner. It was half hidden by rain, but he could faintly see the line of trade in front of it. As the fog deepened, sailing lower under Brooklyn Bridge, Martin could hear the tangled music of a victrola somewhere nearby. The singsong lady of Shanghai was mute behind the stalls. But her Tiao-wu chords brought about by twangy, cut-off strings and yellow pipes as high as reeds can go, caused him to reflect upon the ancient wailing destined to wail forever....

Suddenly he felt his arm seized and the hard mouth of a gun pressed into his back.

“Don’t make a mistake,” said a harsh, low voice.

Martin dropped swiftly on his hands and brought his heels upward, barely missing the other’s chin. The fellow chuckled.

“Still good with your feet, eh, Martin,” he said. “Damn your French foot! It nearly got me!”

Martin squatted by the gutter as he rinsed his stinging hands in the pure flow of rainwater. Getting up, he rubbed his sore shoulders.

“You’ve gone to hell, Duke,” he said. “You weren’t this bad when I left Panama. You should have stuck to reefers. What is it now?”

“The Duke” drew his fingers slowly under his nose, then brought up his coat collar to hide his face, pretending to shake.

Martin smiled, shook hands with his friend whose uproarious laughter followed this act, and pulled him along to a tea-shop on Pell Street. Inside, he ordered coffee while the Duke took Chow Mein with tea.

Martin leaned on the table.

“It’s good to see you,” he said. “Heroin can’t hurt you, apparently.”

“Yes, it can,” said the Duke, nervously pressing a small blue butterfly which was tattooed on his wrist. “Sometimes it hits me like dynamite, and I’ll go on a mad rob for a dollar. But it’s worse when I get cop-fever. Then I go back to my room—Christ!” he said, wiping his face. “Sometimes I crawl back of the dresser. Say—maybe I get peddled the wrong junk?” He looked at Martin hopefully.

“No,” said Martin, “the stuff is all right. You know your contact.” But he was beginning to see certain signs in The Duke’s eyes even now. “Get the tea down,” he continued, “and we’ll move out. Where’s your room?”

With a grotesque, frightening look, the Duke sat up.

“I’m cut short,” he said, the sweat breaking out on his face. “God, Mart!—get me back to my room! Jesus!—it’s the snow!... Cut off the cold wind, Mart!—it’s down on my head!” The Duke’s white face seemed blue in the yellow light. “God, Mart!... Mate!—ah!” he cried, the perspiration running from his forehead in streams.

Martin snapped his fingers at the Chinese waiter who was watching The Duke with placid, averted eyes, took a bill from his pocket and laid it on the table.

“Quickly—where does my friend live?” he asked.

“I do not know, sir,” the waiter smiled.

Martin added another bill to his account.

“Where might he live?” he asked soberly, adding, “when the man is sick, we are all brothers.”

“I would not live against that proverb,” said the waiter. “The hotel is directly across the street—there—” The Chinaman pointed to a large bulb, glowing, but marked with age. “His room may be ascertained at the desk,” he added, bowing low.

“Thanks,” said Martin, as The Duke got to his feet, the horrified turmoil within pressing out through his eyes. He clung to the arm of his friend, but once inside the hotel, tried to dash to the stairs. He was stopped, however, by a quiet little gray-headed Chinese clerk.

“Let me get him up,” Martin said to the man. “I’ll see about his rent later.”

“We do not want Mr. Duke,” said the clerk mildly. He was wearing octagonal glasses which were useless but for their dignity.

“Then I must ask you for his room for only a few minutes,” continued Martin.

“A woman waits for him also,” said the Chinaman.

Martin became cold, as though he were facing a crisis of his own.

“Please show me his room,” he insisted, and perhaps it was his unequivocal stare that made the Chinese submit graciously to his demand.

The cranky elevator stopped and Martin helped The Duke into the hall.

As they approached his room a slim woman—a beautiful Eurasian, so Martin judged by the hall’s dim light, stepped from the door and ran at him.

“Fag!” she cried, as she tried to strike his face.

Martin wrapped her long hair around his wrist, and holding his friend and the woman, entered the room.

The Duke ran to the window, looking out.

“I’ll jump!” he said. “This rat-hole’s too crowded. It’ll call the police.” He stood, bending down to the sill.

“Go ahead,” said Martin, watching him closely, his hand still wrapped in the beautiful long blue hair of the squirming girl.

“No, I’ll hide from them,” cried the Duke, and he began to crawl under the carpet.

The Eurasian, slant-eyed, watched him. Then quickly she turned to Martin.

“Babee!” she said, in a Dutch accent, her yellow eyes lifted to his. “Come with me. Let my hair go.”

Martin saw that The Duke, now flat under the carpet was quiet, and he loosened his own wrist from the woman’s soft hair.

“What is your name?” he asked.

“It is Siedred!”

“A mongrel boy,” he said, his teeth closing and unclosing. “Where do you wish me to go?”

“To my room.”

“In this hall?”

“It is so.”

* * * * *

Martin looked once more at the shaking body under the carpet and took the girl by the waist.

“Come,” he said.

The Eurasian led him from the room, across the hall and to another door which she unlocked silently. Once inside, she turned the lock again and laid the key upon a table.

Breathing without restraint, she slipped her blouse over her head and snapped the buttons from her skirt. As she looked at Martin, her breast filled, then fell, then rose again until Martin, impatient, lifted her and tossed her on the bed, laughing.

“I love you,” cried the native girl as she felt his pointed tongue.

“You are so hot,” replied Martin. “This is not love.”

“It is, it is!” the woman insisted. “Touch me again!”

“Siedred,” said Martin.

“What?”

“Siedred.” He pulled the long cord of the lamp which hung above them. There was a frantic sound of broken clothes, of sighs too distressing, of a single, smothered scream.

“Oh, oh!” Siedred cried.

And out in the corridor, besieged by following tears and moans, Martin crept down the stairs into the street. Unquestioning, he waited before the tiny theater for Drew’s arrival.

As Martin watched, a limousine drew up before the theater and stopped. Drew, his friend, stepped out. He made no sign, but pulled down his hat and turned up the collar of his coat, bringing it under his chin. Then he observed the trade, beckoning at last to a roughly dressed youngster with golden skin and frightened eyes. As he helped the lad into his car, he closed the door upon him, and turning to Martin who stood so quietly in the rain, Drew removed his hat, keeping it off until the water spilled over his blond, pinned hair. His lips spelled “Night.” He bowed slightly and entered the car, closing the door as Martin started toward him. As the limousine passed, Martin could see his mocking, tired face.

_CHAPTER XVIII_

In his room Martin laid his head upon his desk. He wondered about Roberts, his magnificence at the drag, the mad poem intended for himself. Confused by these thoughts, he fell asleep. He dreamed that he was in the bow of a shining canoe, spinning down a great white length of rapids. In the stern of the boat two men were fighting. Rio, and the giant with the white, rain-soaked shirt were striking each other fiercely. Above them hovered the spirit of Freud, smiling at both of them and holding a battered text in one hand and a setscrew in the other which were apparently to be awarded to the victor. Roberts, however, in the form of mist, obstructed the blows of the fighters until the two gladiators became entangled and suddenly dissolved. The spirit of Freud withdrew hastily, while the adviser, with a faint smile at Martin, sat down in the boat as it rotated toward destruction.

Martin awakened from the dream with a somber expression. Then he shook his head and laughed.

“What a symbol!” he exclaimed to himself.

The deep whistles of a ship ready to sail seemed to agitate him and he lowered his head upon the desk again. He thought of Paris, where Drew was going, of Tai with him, and of Deane seeing him off. Once more Martin fell asleep, this time in a world uninhabited by dreams.

* * * * *

This was true for the most part, for Tai was playing in Drew’s suite, while Pat attended him as though he were a little saint.

In the great lounge of the liner Drew was talking seriously with Deane.

“I can’t understand Martin,” he said. “And I must confess that it is impossible for me to live within his orbit.”

“You dislike him so?” Deane raised her dark eyes.

Drew shook his head.

“I can’t connect that term with him,” he answered. “I loved him very deeply at one time. Now, I hate him, or rather, am frightfully jealous of him.”

“Of his sins?” asked Deane.

“No,” replied Drew irritably. “He has no sins. He has none because he does not believe the things he does are wrong.” Drew touched a handkerchief to his head. “Martin,” he continued, “could destroy the world and it would not be sinful. He is selfish, but because he knows it, there is no feeling of blame. He’s like a ghost, and all of the people around him are like ghosts. Even I came to feel like one. There is no reality about him. Yes,” Drew sighed, “he is the most physical creature in the world, and the most untouchable. Oh—I know what you’re thinking, Deane! And I know I’m just putting on.” Suddenly Drew stopped and lit a cigarette for Deane and one for himself.

“I like him the way he is,” said Deane. “I like his unreality. And he isn’t the way you think he is.”

“Oh, _no_,” said Drew, arching his eyebrows. “Oh, dear no!”