Page:Nigger Heaven (1926).pdf/248

 of discrimination is quite illegal in New York—to escape getting hurt. Nobody can hurt me, and so, of course, nothing unpleasant ever happens to me.

Don't you ever get bored?

Unmercifully. Sometimes, I think I'd like to die, I get so bored. It's so tiresome to be uniformly successful. I get so fed up with life that I could scream, but something—well, something always happens to bring me back, a new thrill, a new dress, a new dog—something. I've never been bored long and I never will be. . . . She tapped on wood with her gloved hand. . . . I won't permit myself to be bored, she announced, almost sternly. It's a weakness, my only one, she muttered under her breath.

You're a wonderful woman! Byron apparently could muster up no alternative approbatory phrase.

So you've said, and you're quite right. I don't know any other who is quite so wonderful. Fortunately, she continued, there are wonderful men too.

She gave vent to a hearty laugh. Her mirth proved infectious. Without much knowing why, without much caring why, Byron yielded to her mood. This time, it was he who sought her hand.

He had never before seen a chamber so magnificent as Lasca's drawing-room. The walls, tinted an apple-green, were bare of pictures, save the representation of a nude woman in a silver frame which