Page:Show boat - 1926.djvu/333

 garments of sombre colour and restrained cut, still produced the effect of being attired in what is known as fast black. They gave forth a heady musky scent. And the mould of their features, even when transformed by the expression that crept over them as they gazed upon those girlish faces so markedly resembling their own, had a look as though the potter had used a heavy thumb.

The convent had been Magnolia's idea. Ravenal had laughed when she broached the subject to him. "She'll be well fed and housed and generally cared for there," he agreed. "And she'll learn French and embroidery and deportment and maybe some arithmetic, if she's lucky. But every t—uh—every shady lady on Clark Street sends her daughter there."

"She's got to go somewhere, Gay. This pillar-to-post life we're leading is terrible for a child."

"What about your own life when you were a child? I suppose you led a prissy existence."

"It was routine compared to Kim's. When I went to bed in my little room on the Cotton Blossom I at least woke up in it next morning. Kim goes to sleep on north Clark and wakes up on Michigan Avenue. She never sees a child her own age. She knows more bell boys and chambermaids and waiters than a travelling man. She thinks a dollar bill is something to buy candy with and that when a stocking has a hole in it you throw it away. She can't do the simplest problem in arithmetic, and yesterday I found her leaning over the second floor rotunda rail spitting on the heads of people in the"

"Did she hit anybody?"