Page:Angna Enters - Among the Daughters.djvu/178

 "I'm all tired out. It seems if you go to one big party you have to keep going to others, like those long bunches of little red firecrackers you can't stop," Lucy told Peggy Watson, whom she had not seen for several weeks, as they walked to Master's.

"I don't expect to see much of you from now on, you're in the big time now," Peggy said stiffly.

"That's not nice. You know I invited you to Figente's one afternoon. He's crazy, but you'd like him."

"Not me—I don't know how to act in Society."

"For heaven's sake! You act as you always do. They're like everybody else. Except Figente. You should see his bedroom. The ceiling all mirrors with animals peeping down painted on. And beautiful lacquer cages, black, gold, and red reeds against jungle wallpaper. Colored birds and monkeys in the cages. They make an awful racket and you can smell them even through a perfume called Pikaki he imports from Hawaii. You never saw such a big bed, so high you almost need a ladder, it's on a platform and with a draw curtain of gorgeous red silk brocade. I said, 'It looks like a stage, it's big enough to give shows on," and he said, 'I do, my dear! But principally, like pious Queen Anne of France, I have it for my handmaidens so they all can sleep together and keep from mischief.' So I said, 'I'm surprised you don't build one of those pretty cages around, it wouldn't be so stuffy as with a curtain' and he said he would do it if I would lie on it on a pink marabou cover. I said, 'Don't you know red and pink don't go together?' And he said, 'Ah, my child, it is evident you have not seen the Ballet Russe or you would not utter such sacrilege against the great Bakst.' He talks like that. He has another bedroom for himself, narrow and whitewashed, with only a hard cot and prayer stool. On the prayer stool is a book in old cream leather with gold letters called Dante. It's in Italian. I never read it."

"How could you, you're not a Dago."

"Well, I'm sure it's in English too because I have a very dear friend in Congress who told me about it, and she isn't Italian. It's all about Dante's love for some girl named Beatrice and he goes to hell."

"Some love story—anyway, I should worry about poets—they're nutty."

That was the trouble with Peggy Watson, one could learn fast what she knew. Vida would be interested in Figente.

"Well, of course, you never read anything."

"I do too—I read Variety from cover to cover every week." 166