Page:Angna Enters - Among the Daughters.djvu/41

, surely they were a source from whom Heaven Only Knew what benevolence might flow.

She divided their few dollars, half for food, half for rent. It must last until Lucy, like a blue fairy, fluttered into Mr. Brady's heart. The food money would keep Lucy strong until her dance, and the rent money would buy a forget-me-not blue tarlatan sparkling with a Roman candle shower of sequins.

The squat sloppy landlady, hardened to appeals from the weird beings who existed furtively in her malodorous cubbyholes, unceremoniously opened their door with a pass key. Her gimlet eyes glittered as, undecided about waiting a little longer for her rent, she studied the sparkling sequins. She would just as soon throw that Lucy out into the gutter where she belonged. Making hard-working Mr. Schmidt buy her candy.

Mae, meekly accepting the intrusion, sought to embroider the sequins' significance.

"Mr. Brady—of the Empire—himself engaged Lucy," she pleaded. Where could they go if the landlady evicted them?

Lucy, though used to brutal invasions of their privacy by landladies, glared at Mrs. Murphy. If she says one more mean thing to Mother I'll scratch her eyes out.

"Well," said Mrs. Murphy, seduced by the sequin sparkle, "I'll expect my money Sunday morning, before Mass."

Mae's small semi-transparent teeth glistened in a relieved grimace. Reprieve until the morning after Lucy's dance. Even, she persuaded herself, if Mr. Brady cannot engage Lucy right away, maybe he can hire me to take care of costumes. She dashed cold water in her tired eyes and hummed happily in a faint high voice.

At word of Lucy's engagement other fingers of ambition reached out to participate.

At last, thought Ilona Klemper, she would be accorded professional recognition and be asked to supply groups of dancers who would make her famous. In anticipation she taught Lucy a creation for beginners by Morris Volkov entitled "Doll Dance."

Miss Eckles, the accompanist, thought she would escape the anonymity of playing endless exercises for Miss Klemper's classes, assuming she would be Lucy's accompanist and perhaps play a solo. Lucy disillusioned her without trying to soften the blow. Four men from the Empire orchestra had agreed to play. Mr. Brady said, "Gus can play the piano like anything, just tell him what you want." Rh