Albert! Their wedding night when the door had closed behind
them! "O God, make him take me! Please!
"Far from the o-old folks--at ho--"
"That will do."
She stood with her mouth an O on the unfinished note, hand to the little
rise of her bosom.
"Meet me around in my office back stage." His voice was like a call in a
fog, retreating and retreating. She followed it. They met in a narrow
patch of broad daylight.
"I'm afraid," she began, her voice breaking on a gulp--"I'm afraid I
didn't--"
"You did very well," he said, kindly. "Little off key and your voice
won't set the world on fire, and it has a tremolo quality that may be
rotten-bad singing, but it's the right stuff for the act."
She thought, with a swoop of perception, that in this she discerned the
astuteness of a buyer too clever to praise the article he covets. She
felt lighter, as if some of her had melted in the ordeal. The machinery
of her body began to take up again, the saliva to flow, and her heart to
beat without seeming to hit its walls.
"I'll try you out for a week. Twenty dollars?"
"Yes." Trying to seem to pro and con.
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