Star-Dust Part 33

"We got more only last night from her in 'Traviata.' They pulled her carriage after the opera. Felix Auchinloss went special from Vienna to conduct her. That's her picture there and there and there. Say, ain't that a coinstidance you should be a voice!"

Lilly stood regarding one of the framed photographs. A lifted young profile, ever so slightly of the father's aquilinity, a vocal-looking swell to the bosom, and a chin that locked up prettily to the protuberant upper lip.

Regarding her, such a nausea of bitterness flowed over Lilly that her lips were too wry to speak and she could have sobbed out her plight to the simple soul there, with her hands in the m.u.f.f of her ap.r.o.n, and her gaze soft to tears upon the photograph.

"That ain't so good of her, miss, as some her papa keeps down in the store. In Milan they call her the American Beauty. Auchinloss won't conduct 'Faust' without our Millie's Marguerite. How she used to practice it, miss, righd on that piano you seen in the front room. It's worth all the sacrifices we made for such a success like hers. I doan'

know who you study with, but if you come to us here, I wand once you should let her old teacher, Ballman, hear you. He's the man that can find your voice if you got it."

"Oh, I do want to come here, Mrs. Neuga.s.s. I--If only--. Will you--will you let me talk to you as I would to my own mother? I--somehow--I--I think you will understand--"

Then Mrs. Neuga.s.s came closer, a little whisper of garlic in her breath and her eyes screwed to conniving.

"Sa-y, miss, you doan' need to worry. Doan' tell it to my husband that the reduction came from me, but if three dollars is all you can pay, since it's for some one who will use the piano and liven up things a little, it's worth the difference to me in pleasure."

"Oh, Mrs. Neuga.s.s, if you knew what a place like this would mean to me--now! If only you--"

"All righd, then, for a few cents we doan' d.i.c.ker. Say we make it three dollars, and on rainy mornings coffee and rolls so you doan' get your feet wet."

"But I--"

"We're blain beoble, miss, but we got a respegtable standing in the neighborhood for fifteen years. My husband's daughter by his first marriage is sixteen years bookkeeper down by Aaron Schmoll Paper Box Company in Green Street. We doan' got to rent, miss, unless it should be to the righd person. A nice young lady like you--"

"But what if I were to tell you, Mrs. Neuga.s.s, that I'm a mar--"

"You got references? It ain't I don't trust, but business is business, ain't it?"

"I'm afraid I haven't. You see, I'm a stranger. Here from--the West to study. I don't quite like it where I am. In fact, I want to get out to-day."

"Say, doan' I know how things can happen? For two months after she arrived in Munich, where she went first, my Millie used to write home, 'Mamma, I can't get myself settled righd.' In one place bugs and in another they complained of her practicing. I got sympathy for a girl trying to get settled. You can come righd away up into a room of mine, miss. There's no extra cleaning to be done."

"Oh, Mrs. Neuga.s.s, if I may! I've only my valise and suitcase."

A complete shrugging of Mrs. Neuga.s.s took place, her voice, brow, and manner lifting.

"Valise and suitcase. Is that a baggage?"

"I'm sending West for my trunks later, Mrs. Neuga.s.s."

"You'm _Goyem_, not?"

"Beg pardon?"

"You're Gentiles, ain't it? Well, with _Goyem_ such things ain't so important. I'll show you sometimes the way my Millie left home, complete even to hand-crocheted washrags. Three of us had to sit on her trunk.

You'm _Goyem_, not?"

"I was reared in the Unitarian Church, if that's what you mean, until--well, I guess until I sort of figured out my own religion for myself."

"We're Jews, you know, miss, in case you should have any _richas_."

"_Richas?_"

"Prejudices against us, like some. My husband has one of the finest cantor voices of any temple in the city."

"No, no, Mrs. Neuga.s.s. I just love Jewish people. Some of the nicest folks we knew in St. Lo--I ever knew--have been Jews," cried Lilly, with the colossal, the unconscious patronage of race consciousness.

It left no welt, however, across the sensibilities of Mrs. Neuga.s.s. The centuries had seen to that. She was craven and she was superb in her heritage.

"I always say, thank G.o.d for whad I am, but it doan' matter to me whad anybody else is, just so she is that with the best she has in her."

"Exactly. There--there is something I ought to say to you, Mrs. Neuga.s.s.

You've made it so difficult, with your kindness, but I--well, I--There are certain conditions I want you to know about. I--Not a--I could only take the room for a few months, Mrs. Neuga.s.s, because I--"

"Say, doan' I know how it is with students?"

"No, no--"

"They go home when it comes summer. You doan' got to worry. It ain't like we need it to pay rent with. You got my word it's all righd, Miss--The name, blease--Miss what?"

"Par--Parlow. Lilly Parlow."

"All righd, Miss Parlow; that makes everything fine."

She opened her purse, unfolding a bill.

"I'll pay now," she said, calm with sudden decision.

"Sa-y, I would have trusted you. But you're like me, I always say money speaks louder than words."

"I'll be right back, Mrs. Neuga.s.s."

"That's good. I'll have out fresh towels. That's one thing I doan'

expect from n.o.body is to stint on towels."

And so it came about that at the moment Robert Visigoth was confronted with a sudden gap in his program, Lilly Penny, with almost the week's lodging still to her credit, was tiptoeing through the moldy halls of the house in Forty-fourth Street, her luggage hitting against wall and banisters and a palpitating fear fuddling her haste.

At the second flight down she experienced her first and by no means fragrant encounter in these hallways. A door flew open with a rush and, her thin body wrapped in something ornate and flowing that was like a quick sheaf of flame around her, a woman dragged suddenly out to the head of the stairs, by the actual scruff of the neck, the ridiculous figure of a male, his collar--the necktie streaming from it--in his hand.

She spat then a bombardment of screaming profanity that sickened Lilly as she stood unseen and flattened against the wall. A further shove sent him sprawling down the remaining stairs, and from the open doorway a flung waistcoat and coat draped him ludicrously as they struck.

"Cheap skate! Piker! Skinflint!"

Then a slamming, reverberating door, and, while she stood trembling and waiting, the creature on the stairs, a hulk of Swede with short, square teeth and a corner of lip that snarled back to bare them, scrambled into his coat, stumbling out the front door, collar still in his clutch.

Then Lilly wound her weak-kneed way down the flight after him, softly, to save the creak, her luggage held out before her.

The air outside seemed cleansing as water to her. She could not breathe deeply enough of it. For a long and indeterminate period she stood at the corner, Amsterdam Avenue car after car rumbling past, her luggage on the sidewalk and inclosing her in a little island.

Indecision buffeted her. Even Mrs. Neuga.s.s and her apartment had suddenly become abhorrent; Broadway as barren as any granite gully and somehow terrifying. She strolled a block toward the station, yet it is doubtful whether in the back of her head Lilly did not know the impulse of home to be a mock one.