Page:Angna Enters - Among the Daughters.djvu/266

 Iris March green hat, not this lumpy woman. Oh boy, daggers! She hates me! A black cutaway with striped pants knew who she was. Thirty-five? No, forty-five. Men like that know how to take care of themselves. The couples holding hands were cute. They couldn't afford the things they looked at in the windows but they were in love so it didn't matter.

First the worst, Second the same, Last the best Of all the game.

Why only three? It took more than that to find out what love was about. Or did it? Supposing you can't be sure it's the last and best but you think maybe? That fool, wearing a top coat on a day like this. Thinks I'm flirting. What would I do if men didn't think me pretty? Looks are funny. In Denver I was a dandelion with a fuzzy top. After that my hair dangled like springs of yellow satin ribbon. When I met Clem I combed it out softer, like the girls in his French magazines. Looking at the pictures in Mode in Denver and Congress I never thought a première danseuse would walk up Fifth Avenue on Sunday by herself. The trouble with me is I'm too old-fashioned, 1 always think I have to be in love. What's important is to be an artist. You can't be a real star unless you can sing and say lines. Maybe I ought to take singing lessons. I don't know what Paul Vermillion meant when he said you can't be taught to be an artist unless you teach yourself. What is that secret artists have, as if they know what makes the world go round? Or is it an act? If love is only like what I've known, why my goodness, it's an awful fuss about something that's fun but not something you can't live without. Sherman Moses' music is wonderful, like making love mixed up with New York. When he looked at me I was sure he wanted to make love and then all he did was to play his music on the piano for hours and was he surprised when I said I really have to leave now! I know now that is how he thinks he has to impress a girl. I guess it's like Vida's poets, they're talking the girls into it, when it isn't necessary at all. When Simone sings you can tell she knows something, I don't know what, but it works up the whole audience. Maybe it's because she's a woman who not only has been loved but has felt love herself. When she stands against the piano in that orchid light, her hands clasped across her breasts, it gives you a funny feeling, as though it's Love singing. 254