U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [513]
" Eveline, that's swel ! Who's it by?"
" Charles Edward Holden. . . . It's a magnificent piece of work. I'm terribly excited about it. I think I know how to do it. . . . I don't suppose you want to put a couple of thousand dol ars in, do you, Dick?"
" Eveline, I'm flat broke. . . . They've got my salary garnisheed and Mother has to be supported in the style to which she is accustomed and then there's Brother Henry's ranch in Arizona . . . he's al bal ed up with a
-485-mortgage. . . . I thought Charles Edward Holden was just a columnist."
"This is a side of him that's never come out. . . . I think he's the real poet of modern New York . . . you wait and see."
Dick poured himself another cocktail. "Let's talk about just us for a minute. . . . I feel so frazzled. . . . Oh, Eveline, you know what I mean. . . . We've been pretty good friends." She let him hold her hand but she did not return the squeeze he gave it. "You know we always said we were just physical y attractive to each other . . . why isn't that the swel est thing in the world?" He moved up close to her on the couch, gave her a little kiss on the cheek, tried to twist her face around. "Don't you like this miserable sinner a little bit?"
" Dick, I can't." She got to her feet. Her lips were twitching and she looked as if she was going to burst into tears. "There's somebody I like very much . . . very, very much. I've decided to make some sense out of my life."
"Who? That damn columnist?"
"Never mind who."
Dick buried his face in his hands. When he took his hands away he was laughing. "Wel , if that isn't just my luck. . . . Just Johnny on the spot and me ful of speak-easy if that isn't just my luck. . . . Just Johnny on the spot and me ful of speak-easy Saturdayafternoon amorosity."
"Wel , Dick, I'm sure you won't lack for partners."
"I do today. . . . I feel lonely and hel ish. My life is a shambles."
"What a literary phrase."
"I thought it was pretty good myself but honestly I feel every whichway. . . . Something funny happened to me last night. 'I'l tel you about it someday when you like me better."
" Dick, why don't you go to Eleanor's? She's giving a party for al the boyars."
-486-"Is she real y going to marry that horrid little prince?" Eveline nodded with that same cold bitter look in her eyes. "I suppose a title is the last word in the decorating business. .
. . Why won't Eleanor put up some money?"
"I don't want to ask her. She's filthy with money, though, she's had a very successful fal . I guess we're al getting grasping in our old age. . . . What does poor Moore-house think about the prince?"
"I wish I knew what he thought about anything. I've been working for him for years now and I don't know whether he's a genius or a stuffed shirt. . . . I wonder if he's going to be at Eleanor's. I want to get hold of him this evening for a moment. . . . That's a very good idea.
. . . Eveline, you always do me good one way or an-other."
"You'd better not go without phoning. . . . She's per-fectly capable of not letting you in if you come uninvited and particularly with a houseful of émigrée Russians in tiaras." Dick went to the phone and cal ed up. He had to wait a long time for Eleanor to come. Her voice sounded shril and rasping. At first she said why didn't he come to din-ner next week instead. Dick's voice got very coaxing.
"Please let me see the famous prince, Eleanor. . . . And I've got something very important to ask you about. . . . After al you've always been my guardian angel, Eleanor If I can't come to you when I'm in trouble, who can I come to?" At last she loosened up and said he could come but he mustn't stay long. "You can talk to poor J. Ward
. . . he looks a little forlorn." Her voice ended in a screechy laugh that made the receiver jangle and hurt his ear.
When he went back to the sofa Eveline was lying back against the pil ows soundlessly laughing. "Dick," she said,
"you're a master of blarney." Dick made a face at her, kissed her on the forehead and left the house.
-487-Eleanor's place was glittering with chandeliers and cut-glass. When she met him at the drawingroom door her smal narrow face looked smooth and breakable as a piece of porcelain under her careful ycurled hair and above a big rhinestone brooch that held a lace col ar together. From behind her came the boom and the high piping of Russian men's and women's voices and a smel of tea and charcoal. "Wel , Richard, here you are," she said in a rapid hissing whisper. "Don't forget to kiss the grandduchess's hand .