Page:The Blacker the Berry - Thurman - 1929.djvu/105

 eyes gleamed and a smile of anticipation spread over her face, despite her efforts to appear dignified and suave. The typist continued her work. From the cubby hole came a murmur of voices, one feminine and affected, the other masculine and coarse. Through the open window came direct sounds and vagrant echoes of traffic noises from Seventh Avenue. Now the two in the cubby hole were laughing, and the girl at the typewriter seemed to be smiling to herself as she worked.

What did this mean? Nothing, silly. Don’t be so sensitive. Emma Lou’s eyes sought the pictures on the wall. There was an early twentieth century photographic bust-portrait, encased in a bevelled glass frame, of a heavy-set good-looking, brown-skinned man. She admired his mustache. Men didn’t seem to take pride in such hirsute embellishments now. Mustaches these days were abbreviated and limp. They no longer were virile enough to dominate and make a man’s face appear more strong. Rather, they were only insignificant patches weakly keeping the nostrils from merging with the upper lip.

Emma Lou wondered if that was Mr. Brown. He had a brown face and wore a brown suit. No, maybe that was Mr. Angus, and perhaps that was Mr. Brown on the other side of the room, in the square, enlarged kodak print, a slender yellow man, stand-