Page:The Black Cat November 1916.djvu/43



BY KENNETH VAUX REED

VY'S trousered legs swung gayly even while she frowned severely at a fold of her wide white smock which she creased and recreased. Ivy's feet were like that—eternally optimistic, dance feet. And, sitting there on the sill of Perreard's second-story window, she was merry in spite of the seriousness of the business in hand.

"Nothing to it, Harvey." She shook her head without turning to look at the moist, chubby tenor who pleaded at her shoulder. "I can't see you that way."

"Aw, be a good fellow, sweetie," the little fat man begged peevishly, coaxingly. "Just try and look once. You and I hitched up could go out over the big time together and show vaudeville what's what. You've been there and got a rep, I know. That's why Perry just the same as stars you here in his bum cabaret. It'd be kinda like hitching my wagon to a star I suppose, but I'm willing. Sing me the pretty tune this time. C'mon." His hot breath was on her neck, his cheek against hers, one arm behind her, the other circling in front to meet it. He was fat and warm and excited. The physical contact made Ivy frown and her foot stop swinging for an instant, but she had long since learned to endure this thing from men she could not ignore altogether. She sat still in his embrace.

Behind them, in Perry's, was the buzz of the cabaret diners and over that the boisterous delivery of a vaudeville monologuist. The faint glow of light that strained through the coarse canvas of the scenery on Perry's miniature stage to lighten the gloom all about them, came from the great hot room where Perry's patrons, rejoicing in the belief that they were happy as Parisians only are happy, consumed carelessly prepared food and carefully adulterated wine and all the while applauded the excellence of the entertainment provided. For Perry's is one of the oldest of the cabarets in this country and the best as a place of amusement. There the spirit of the cabaret is preserved.

So long was Ivy silent that the fat man finally concluded she was not going to answer him.

"Silence tokens assent," he murmured and tried to kiss her. Her hand went up to his face and turned it away easily, carelessly. And again she was silent, suffering his embrace, her face turned away from the light outward to the listless breeze from the darkness of the street below. Even