Page:Angna Enters - Among the Daughters.djvu/245

 something up your sleeve. Blackmail? She hadn't been one of her girls, probably a sister or daughter of one, or she was from one of the other houses. Horta Cornwallis' horny chickens' feet fingers clawed down the string of bullet pearls. There always was some way to get around these girls, there always was something they wanted. And if that didn't work, there were other ways to shut their mouths.

The Marqués did not understand Opal's reference to Lucy. "A most beautiful girl. One has the feeling she is illuminated from within by a soft morning light."

"She is rather pretty, isn't she?" Clarissa said casually to Lyle. A dear friend had taken care to tell her about Lyle and the dancer.

"That," Tessie said to the Marqués, "is what we call a 'come hither' look. I never thought I'd see Claudel without a man."

She regretted this remark, seeing the Marqués' eyes haze at the affront to his friend Figente, and noting the politeness with which he told Beman that he looked forward to seeing a revue graced by two such lovely women. Beman impatiently tapped the ash from his cigarette. He wished Tessie could be less obvious in her jealousy. If Claudel would only play along with Bigelow there wouldn't be any trouble about financing the play about a dancer. It would make her a star. What she needed was to be taken in hand by someone practical like Horta.

"At last we meet again," Ranna said to Lucy as they tangoed.

"I was surprised to see you here."

"Alveg Dahl is a friend from Europe. He is painting Mrs Allwood."

"I suppose you are planning a recital?"

"Not yet. I have been rather busy," he said, thinking how pleasurable it was to dance with this fragrant flesh after the tiresome routine of establishing relationships with dried-out women to whom he had letters. Skillfully he wound her out of a tangled knot of dancers. "I wished to telephone you but I have been so preoccupied finding a studio. Most difficult," he said frowning, without explaining that because of his color he had found it impossible to rent a hotel room except in Harlem. He had been rescued by Mrs. Custerd and was now occupying the studio apartment of a woman painter friend of hers who preferred to live in Florence. An unnerving introduction to the New World from which he was just recovering.

"Are you going to teach? If you do, I'd love to take lessons." Rh