Page:Levenson - Butterfly Man.djvu/143

Rh. He hated her because she was a weak child. He didn't want her. In the morning he would dance. The girl, drunk and hysterical, the cheap little actor—they were not for him, he decided. Better to go home alone and to bed.

"I'm going home," he said to Dick. He let the sobbing girl fall back upon the couch.

She lay there. Her brassiere had slipped down. Her hands covered her round, swollen breasts. "Oh," she sobbed. "I'm awful, so awful. I hate myself—oh, Kenneth!"

"Hot Emma!" Dick laughed. Ken shrugged his shoulders. Dick smirked. He sat beside the girl on the couch.

"Oh, Dick," she moaned. "I'm so unhappy. Love me. Make me forget."

Dick's eyes said, "Get out!" Ken quit the room and the apartment.

The following day, neither Dick Carter nor Luisa Pagano reported at rehearsal. An understudy read Dick's lines, an extra girl danced in the chorus. When they did not appear on a second morning, Howard Vee reported their absence to Actors' Equity. That afternoon they were dropped from the cast of "Sweeter Than Sweet."

Jules Monroe visited Ken's dressing-room. "You were lucky," he said. "How did you manage to stay on your feet yesterday morning?"

"I didn't drink," Ken said.

"I'm not a moralist," Monroe explained, "though I could preach a two-hour sermon at your head."

"Please don't."

"Kenneth!" Jules said with sudden passion. "I'm going