United States or Brazil ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Through a peephole in the curtain she admired the auditorium; and it did look surprisingly well by lamplight, with the smutches and faded spots on its bright paint softened or concealed. "How many will it hold?" she asked Mabel, who was walking up and down, carrying her long train. "A hundred and twenty comfortably," replied Miss Connemora. "A hundred and fifty crowded.
I'd not let you ever speak of work again even on the stage. What good times we could have!" "I must be going," said she, rising. Her whole body was alternately hot and cold. In her brain, less vague now, were the ideas Mabel Connemora had opened up for her. "Oh, bother!" exclaimed he. "Sit down a minute. You misunderstood me. I don't mean I'm flat broke."
The bad in human nature, as Mabel Connemora had said, is indeed almost entirely if not entirely the result of the compulsion of circumstances; the good is the natural outcropping of normal instincts, and resumes control whenever circumstances permit. These wandering players had suffered too much not to have the keenest and gentlest sympathy.
I'm a rare exception to my ordinary self, to be quite honest. It'll be best for you always to assume that every man you run across is looking for just one thing. You know what?" Susan, the flush gone from her cheeks, nodded. "I suppose Connemora has put you wise. But there are some things even she don't know about that subject. Now, I want you to listen to your grandfather. Remember what he says.
Now lines were coming and the hard look that is inevitable with dyed hair. Also her once fine teeth were rapidly going off, as half a dozen gold fillings in front proclaimed. At Susan's appealing look and smile Miss Connemora nodded not unfriendly. "Good God, Bob," said she to Burlingham with a laugh, "are you going to get the bunch of us pinched for child-stealing?"
While the others laughed, Susan gazed at him with a puzzled expression. She wished to be polite, to please, to enjoy. But what that story meant she could not fathom. Miss Anstruther jeered at her. "Look at the innocent," she cried. "Shut up, Vi," retorted Miss Connemora. "It's no use for us to try to be anything but what we are. Still, let the baby alone." "Yes let her alone," said Burlingham.
"It seems to me you're very innocent," said Mabel, "even for a well-brought-up girl. I was well brought up, too. I wish to God my mother had told me a few things. But no not a thing." "What do you mean?" inquired Susan. That set the actress to probing the girl's innocence what she knew and what she did not. It had been many a day since Miss Connemora had had so much pleasure.
Her teeth were a curious mixture of natural, gold, and porcelain. "Miss Anstruther Miss Sackville," called Burlingham. "Miss Sackville, Miss Violet Anstruther." Miss Anstruther and Susan exchanged bows Susan's timid and frightened, Miss Anstruther's accompanied by a hostile stare and a hardening of the fat, decaying face. "Miss Connemora Miss Sackville."
"But some man might have " The girl left it to Susan's imagination to finish the sentence. "I hadn't anything to steal," repeated Susan, with a kind of cynical melancholy remotely suggestive of Mabel Connemora. The restaurant girl retired behind the counter to reflect, while Susan began upon her meager breakfast with the deliberation of one who must coax a little to go a great ways.
"It'll soak in soon enough," Miss Connemora went on. "No use rubbing it in." "What?" said Susan, thinking to show her desire to be friendly, to be one of them. "Dirt," said Burlingham dryly. "And don't ask any more questions." When the three women had cleared away the dinner and had stowed the dishes in one of the many cubbyholes along the sides of the cabin, the three men got ready for a nap.
Word Of The Day