Page:The Blacker the Berry - Thurman - 1929.djvu/138

 got to rent.” Jasmine Griffith was wary of all contact with American Negroes, for that had been only one of the many embittering incidents she had experienced.

Emma Lou liked Jasmine, but was conscious of the fact that she could never penetrate her stolid reserve. They often talked to one another when they met in the hallway, and sometimes they stopped in one another’s rooms, but there was never any talk of going places together, never any informal revelations or intimacies.

The Negro actors in “Cabaret Gal,” all felt themselves superior to Emma Lou, and she in turn felt superior to them. She was just a maid. They were just common stage folk. Once she had had an inspiration. She had heard that “Cabaret Gal” was liable to run for two years or more on Broadway before road shows were sent out. Without saying anything to Arline she had approached the stage director and asked him, in all secrecy, what her chances were of getting into the cabaret ensemble. She knew they paid well, and she speculated that two or three years in “Cabaret Gal” might lay the foundations for a future stage career.

“What the hell would Arline do,” he laughed, “if she didn’t have you to change her complexion before every performance?”