U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [449]
Mr. A had his troubles al right. One of the worst was a redheaded girl he'd been caught with in a hotel by his wife's detectives who was al the time blackmailing him, and threatening to sue for breach of promise and give the whole story to the Hearst papers.
"Oh, how awful," Agnes would keep saying, when Margo would tel her about it over a cup of coffee at noon. "If he only had the right thoughts. . . . You must talk to him and make him try and see. . . . If he only understood I know everything would be different. . . . A successful man like that should be ful of right thoughts."
"Ful of Canadian Club, that's what's the matter with him. . . . You ought to see the trouble I have getting him home nights." "You're the only friend he has," Agnes would say, rol ing up her eyes. "I think it's noble of you to stick by him."
Margo was paying al the back bil s up at the apartment and had started a smal account at the Bowery Savings Bank just to be on the safe side. She felt she was getting the hang of the stockmarket a little. Stil it made her feel
-328-trashy not working and it gave her the creeps sitting around in the apartment summer afternoons while Agnes read Frank Science and Health in a singsong voice, so she started going around the dress shops to see if she could get herself a job as a model. "I want to learn some more about clothes . . . mine always look like they were made of old floursacks," she explained to Agnes. "Are you sure Mr. Anderson won't mind?""If he don't like it he can lump it," said Margo, tossing her head. In the fal they final y took her on at Piquot's new French gownshop on Fiftyseventh Street. It was tiresome work but it left her evenings free. She confided to Agnes that if she ever let Mr. A out of her sight in the evening some little floosey or other would get hold of him sure as fate. Agnes was delighted that Margo was out of the show business. "I never felt it was right for you to do that sort of thing and now I feel you can be a real power for good with poor Mr. Anderson," Agnes said. Whenever Margo told them about a new plunger he had taken on the mar-ket, Agnes and Frank would hold the thought for Mr. Anderson. Jules Piquot was a middleaged roundfaced Frenchman
with a funny waddle like a duck who thought al the girls were crazy about him. He took a great fancy to Margo, or maybe it was that he'd found out somewhere that her pro-tector, as he cal ed it, was a mil ionaire. He said she must always keep that beautiful golden tan and made her wear her hair smooth on her head instead of in the curls she'd worn it in and made her wear her hair smooth on her head instead of in the curls she'd worn it in since she had been a Fol ies girl. "Vat is te use to make beautiful clothes for American women if tey look so healty like from milkin' a cow?" he said. "Vat you need to make interestin' a dress is 'ere," and he struck himself with a pudgy ringed fist on the bosom of his silk pleated shirt. "It is drama. . . . In America al you care about is te perfect tirtysix."
"Oh, I guess you think we're very unrefined," said
-329-Margo. "If I only 'ad some capital," groaned Piquot, shaking his head as he went back to his office on the mez-zanine that was al glass and eggshel white with aluminum fittings. "I could make New York te most stylish city in te vorld." Margo liked it parading around in the Paris models and in Piquot's own slinky contraptions over the deep putty-colored rugs. It was better than shaking her fanny in the chorus al right. She didn't have to get down to the show-rooms til late. The showrooms were warm and spotless, with a faint bitter smel on the air of new materials and dyes and mothbal s, shot through with a whiff of scented Egyptian cigarettes.The models had a little room in the back where they could sit and read magazines and talk about beauty treatments and the theaters and the footbal season, when there were no customers. There were only two other girls who came regularly and there weren't too many customers either. The girls said that Piquot was going broke.
When he had his sale after Christmas Margo got Agnes to go down one Monday morning and buy her three stun-ning gowns for thirty dol ars each; she tipped Agnes off on just what to buy and made out not to know her when she pranced out to show the new spring models off.