Just Around the Corner Part 36

"Around the knees I mean, Ysobel. It's hard for me to walk."

"If it was any looser I'd get a fit of the laughs like I did over that red serge. If it was any looser--for Gawd's sake, leave that neck open!

No, no; down like that! A strip of real, lily-white, garden-variety neck, and she wants to pin it shut!"

"I--I feel ashamed--I--I--kinda hate to leave it open."

"Shades of Vyette! Leave that neck alone, can't you? After all my preachin' yesterday, look where I landed you. Nowheres!"

"Like that, Ysobel?"

"Take the pin out, there; center left like that. Say, girl, I wish you knew about this game what I've forgot."

"Me, too, Ysobel."

"Say, listen to her warblin' down there, will you? What's she practisin'

for, I wonder--a chaser act on a four-a-day circuit? Breathe in, girl, you may be a perfect thirty-six, but you'll never make a tape-measure see it your way."

"Shall I--shall I tell 'em I got a voice, Ysobel? Me and my little sister used to sing in--"

Miss Du Prez glanced up over Della's shoulder and, by proxy of the mirror, their eyes met. The red of exertion was high in her face, and one corner of her mouth compressed over pins, so that her words leaked out as through the lips of a faun.

"Voice! You remind me of the fellow that went down to Bowling Green to bowl. They got as much room for voices in musical comedy as a magazine's got for anything besides the advertisin' pages."

"My little sister's got--"

"Can you beat it? 'Voice,' she says. You put your voice in your ankles and waist-line, girl, and it'll get you further. And as for scales like our friend down-stairs, learn to keep the runners out of your silk stockings first. There, give it the Anna Held tilt--there--more--so!"

"Oh-h-h, Ysobel--oh-h-h!"

"Swell, and then some. Who you got to thank? Who steered you right?"

Like a pale-gold aura of moonlight spreading out from behind a black cloud sprang Della's hair against the drooping brim of her hat. She was like a tight-draped, firm-stayed Venus, lyric in every line, her limbs wrapped in an ephod of grace and a skirt that restricted her steps like anklets joined by a too short chain.

"Here, put them white gloves in your bag and save 'em for outside the office doors. Ready?"

"Oh, Ysobel, if my little sister Cottie could only see me now!"

"Don't forget the lines I learnt you last night--two years' experience on Western short circuit--spot-light work, and silent princ.i.p.al--thirty dollars."

"Western short circuit--Western short circuit!"

"Dancing and first-row promenade specialty."

"Dancing and first--"

"Say, you ain't unlearnt it already, have you?"

"No--no."

Down four flights of narrow, unlit stairs with their gauzy laughter, lingering in black hall corners, and then out into a sunlit morning.

At the end of the tall-walled block, lined on both sides with brownstone, straight-front phalanxes of rooming-houses, a segment of Broadway, flashing with automobiles, darting pedestrians, white-facaded buildings, and sun-reflecting windows, flowed like a mountain stream in spring.

"Gee--Ysobel, look at that jam, will you!"

"Well, whatta you know! There goes Vance Dudley! If you want to know what kind of work I do, ask Vance. Me and him did a duet solo in a two-a-day musical sketch that would have landed us on Broadway sure if the lead hadn't put in his lady friend when she came in off the road, flat. I'll show you my notices sometime. That act was good enough for a Hy Myers house if it had been worked right."

"I bet you're grand, Ysobel--your cute little feet and all."

"Ask any of 'em around the offices about me. I could soft-shoe Clarice off the 'Winter Revue' this minute if--if I wasn't what they call in the profesh a--a tin saint. I kinda got my ideas about things--"

"About what, Ysobel?"

"None of them ingenoo lines again, girl. Leave it to you merry widows to take care of yourselves every time. There's nothin' I can learn a merry widow. A merry widow can make Methuselah, herself, feel like a squab when it comes to bein' wise."

"Honest--"

"That baby stare ain't the kind of a cue to throw me, girl. I can steer you up as far as the offices, but I'm done after you once get past the office boy."

"I--I don't--"

"After she gets past the ground-gla.s.s door every girl in the business has got to decide for herself. I decided myself, and look where I got to! Nine years in the business and never creaked a Broadway board yet. I ain't got the looks to get there on my own stuff--and what happens? I wake up dead some day doin' short circuit in a Kansas tank-town. I'll be doin' thirty-a-week, West-of-the-Mississippi stuff to the bitter end because--because I decided _my_ way and selected the rocky lane."

"The rocky lane?"

"Sure! The first job I ever went out for I could 'a' had. Five sides to the part--two songs and a specialty solo, but, instead, I hit him flop across the cheek with my glove and walked out, leavin' him staggerin'

and my engagement layin' on the floor. I--I ain't preachin' to you, honey--I'm just tellin'! Every girl in this business has got to decide for herself--I ain't sayin' one thing or the other."

"Ysobel--hit who across the cheek--hit who?"

"Take it from me, honey, and remember I ain't tryin' to sing you the 'Saint's Serenade,' but take it from me, if I was startin' all over again--way back where you are--I--I'd do the glove act over again. I would, honey, I would, and I ain't preachin', neither."

"Honest to Gawd, Ysobel; I don't know what--"

"Ain't I told you to cut out that ingenoo with me--honest, it gets on my nerves! Watch out, there!"

"Gee; that scart me!"

"Them are pay-as-you-exit taxi-cabs we're dodging. The chorus-girls'

sun-parlors, if you listen to the Sunday supplements and funny papers."

"The time we--came--John--was a great one for watchin' them."

"Take it from me that about all nine out of ten of us gay la-la girls you read about, get out of 'em, is watchin'. All we know about them is dodgin' them after the show to get home in a hurry, stick our feet in hot water to get some of the ache out, and fall into bed too tired to smear the cold-cream off."

"Watch out, there, Ysobel!"

"The truth about the chorus-girl would cripple the box-office and put the feature supplements and press-agents out of business. Here we are, Della--I got to stop off at nine just a minute, and you wait outside for me; remember when we get up to eleven--Western circuit, silent princ.i.p.al and--"