Page:Angna Enters - Among the Daughters.djvu/276

 She doesn't mean food, thought Lucy. "Are there?"

"If you visit me in Paris I will make for you such sweets as you never dreamed of."

"I can't imagine you cooking."

"And why not! Every Frenchwoman knows about the proper preparation of food."

"When I think of a kitchen I think of my Aunt Mabel, she's a good cook."

"So!" She was getting nowhere. The girl either was too cautious or stupid. Simone jumped up. "Are you quite finished?" And, scarcely awaiting a reply, rolled the table out into the hall and closed the door.

Seven o'clock, time to get on with it, fussed the clock.

Simone thought of going to the bedroom to telephone Paul. But what if he would refuse to come? She could not face this evening alone.

"Now then, you lie here, it is more comfortable," she said, and plumped the cushion on the chaise longue.

Lucy stretched out with a replete sigh and waited for what Simone Calvette had to teach. Her hands fell into the valley below her navel and she thought of asking Simone about Manet's "Olympia," but reconsidered and clasped her hands behind her head involuntarily.

Simone bent down and unbuckled the straps of Lucy's new patent leather sandals and slipped them off. "There now, isn't that more comfortable?" Her voice was maternal.

"Yes, I always make the straps tight so I won't turn my ankles."

"You have a reason for everything?"

"Haven't you?"

"I think so, but I have been accused of being unreasonable."

"I'll bet you have a reason for everything. I'll bet when you are singing with your eyes almost closed you don't miss a thing."

"You believe it affectation?"

"Oh, I meant it to be a compliment. I think you are wonderful. What I would like to know is what you do think about when you sing. When I dance I think about keeping time and about the steps—you know, technique—but I also think about other things. Things that have nothing to do with the number—like whether a rip has been mended in the stage floor-cloth or who someone is in the audience. And of course about what I am supposed to interpret too. Do you do that, or do you only think of the meaning of the words, and 264