Page:Angna Enters - Among the Daughters.djvu/56

 She kicked off her shoes and refreshed his memory with a few movements copied from an Empire dancer. The flashes of soft young thighs stirred Mr. Brady's flabby flesh.

"This is the routine Florinda did in your show three weeks ago." He nodded weakly. The itch was unbearable. He rose heavily and moved toward her as she slipped back into her slippers. He took her by the shoulders with what at first seemed paternal approbation. His heavy grip tightened and he pulled her close, leaning over her, his liver-red lips open, his breath reeking. She leaned back until she thought her back would snap. Then as he slobbered over her she pulled away and let go with a sharp kick in his shins.

"Get the hell outa here," he howled, "you little bitch."

But she was already gone.

Fee-fi-fo-fum, I smell the breath of dirty old Mr. Brady.

The idea! The idea! An important man like him acting like dirty old Mr. Schmidt. Each step of her high heels impaled Mr. Brady.

Now she never would dance at the Empire. The next time she danced it would be on a stage. Maybe Gus would play for her. He was nice. That drummer was cute too.

What's the matter with men, always acting like that?

She had a ten-cent malted for lunch and went to say goodbye to Miss Klemper.

"A woman just was here looking for you."

So Mrs. Murphy was out to get them.

Bradys to the left of them, Murphys to the right of them, Rode the six hundred—

Boy!—Some narrow escape!

Miss Klemper was busy putting away hoops, scarves, tambourines, and other aids of the art of the dance used by young neophytes, preparatory to her leaving for a summer of study in New York.

As Lucy told of her solo and the slippery floor Ilona Klemper felt the disappointment of a cook whose cake has fallen. But the aplomb with which the mishap had been remedied made her nod approvingly. Approval salted with envy. She wondered whether she could have improvised. Heretofore she had frowned on Lucy's irrepressible spurts of stage dancing before class. Ballet, she had warned gravely, was a serious art, not to be coarsened with that cheap jazz. But now, listening to Lucy, she decided that a dancer should be versatile, considering how popular stage dancing was. She would take a 44