Page:Levenson - Butterfly Man.djvu/101

Rh cheap joints that lined the thoroughfares waited stolidly for night.

Ken ventured down a narrow native street. Mexican women, shawls over their heads, greasy men, squealing brats, were hurrying to church. The adobe building sat back from the street, half-concealed by a rambling frame hotel where women of all nations still were sleeping.

Candles which gleamed everywhere lighted the interior with a dull flickering glow. As Ken entered, the wooden floor creaked beneath his step. The wooden bench groaned as he sat down.

Before the altar, a dark-skinned youth in overalls ignited the candles of a flaming, bleeding Sacred Heart. A black-clad woman knelt. Six-shooter strapped to his belt, a lean rancher crossed himself before the figure of the Virgin, a plaster Virgin in a dusty wooden niche.

The door opened. Three of the house girls from Frank and Jack's—Maria D'Acosta, the pale little Mexican who always insisted that pure Castilian blood flowed in her veins; Jerry O'Donnell, the sprightly Irish lass from New York; the very American looking Eadie Sloan, ex-extra girl from Hollywood. In the pale candlelight, they were young and eager. Lines of fatigue vanished from their faces and their voices were hushed. Through half-averted eyes they saw Ken.

Because Ken was not a Catholic he felt ill at ease; ashamed because he could not understand the genuflections, could not touch the holy-water to his forehead, nor make obeisance, nor pray.

The priest, venerable, hair snowy white, ascended the altar, faced the Virgin, made the sign of the cross and began to speak very rapidly in Latin. Ken tried to