cried Edith. “See there!”
Her voice rose, became somewhat shrill. Her pointing finger shook slightly.
“There’s the soldier who broke my brother’s leg.”
There were a dozen exclamations; a man in a cutaway coat left his place near the desk and advanced alertly; the stout person made a sort of lightning-like spring toward the short, dark soldier, and then the lobby closed around the little group and blotted them from the sight of Mr. In and Mr. Out.
But to Mr. In and Mr. Out this event was merely a particolored iridescent segment of a whirring, spinning world.
They heard loud voices; they saw the stout man spring; the picture suddenly blurred.
Then they were in an elevator bound skyward.
“What floor, please?” said the elevator man.
“Any floor,” said Mr. In.
“Top floor,” said Mr. Out.
“This is the top floor,” said the elevator man.
“Have another floor put on,” said Mr. Out.
“Higher,” said Mr. In.
“Heaven,” said Mr. Out.
XI
In a bedroom of a small hotel just off Sixth Avenue Gordon Sterrett awoke with a pain in the back of his head and a sick throbbing in all his veins. He looked at the dusky gray shadows in the corners of the room and at a raw place on a large leather chair in the corner where it had long been in use. He saw clothes, dishevelled, rumpled clothes on the floor and he smelt stale cigarette smoke and stale liquor. The windows were tight shut. Outside the bright sunlight had thrown a dust-filled beam across the sill—a beam broken by the head of the wide wooden bed in which he had slept. He lay very quiet—comatose, drugged, his eyes wide, his mind clicking wildly like an unoiled machine.
It must have been thirty seconds after he perceived the sunbeam with the dust on it and the rip on the large leather chair that he had the sense of life close beside him, and it was another thirty seconds after that before that he realized that he was irrevocably married to Jewel Hudson.
He went out half an hour later and bought a revolver at a sporting goods store. Then he took a took a taxi to the room where he had been living on East Twenty-seventh Street, and, leaning across the table that held his drawing materials, fired a cartridge into his head just behind the temple.
PORCELAIN AND PINK
A room in the downstairs of a summer cottage. High around the wall runs an art frieze of a fisherman with a pile of nets at his feet and a ship on a crimson ocean, a fisherman with a pile of nets at his feet and a ship on a crimson ocean, a fisherman with a pile of nets at his feet and so on. In one place on the frieze there is an overlapping—here we have half a fisherman with half a pile of nets at his foot, crowded damply against half a ship on half a crimson ocean. The frieze is not in the plot, but frankly it fascinates me. I could continue indefinitely, but I am distracted by one of the two objects in the room—a blue porcelain bathtub. It has character, this bathtub. It is not one of the new racing bodies, but is small with a high tonneau and looks as if it were going to jump; discouraged, however, by the shortness of its legs, it has submitted to its environment and to its coat of sky-blue paint. But it grumpily refuses to allow any patron completely to stretch his legs—which brings us neatly to the second object in the room:
It is a girl—clearly an appendage to the bathtub, only her head and throat—beautiful girls have throats instead of necks—and a suggestion of shoulder appearing above the side. For the first ten minutes of the play the audience is engrossed in wondering if she really is playing the game fairly and hasn’t any clothes on or whether it is being cheated and she is dressed.
The girl’s name is Julie Marvis. From the proud way she sits up in the bathtub we deduce that she is not very tall and that she carries herself well. When she smiles, her upper tip rolls a little and reminds you of an Easter Bunny, She is within whispering distance of twenty years old.
One thing more—above and to the right of the bathtub is a window. It is narrow and has a wide sill; it lets in much sunshine, but effectually prevents any one who looks in from seeing the bathtub. You begin to suspect the plot?
We open, conventionally enough, with a song, but, as the startled gasp of the audience quite drowns out the first half, we will give only the last of it:
JULIE: (In an airy sophrano—enthusiastico)
When Caesar did the Chicago
He was a graceful child,
Those sacred chickens
Just raised the dickens
The Vestal Virgins went wild.
Whenever the Nervii got nervy
He gave them an awful razz
They shook is their shoes
With the Consular blues
The Imperial Roman Jazz
(During the wild applause that follows JULIE modestly moves her arms and makes waves on the surface of the water—at least we suppose she does. Then the door on the left opens and LOIS MARVISenters, dressed but carrying garments and towels. LOIS is a year older than JULIE and is nearly her double in face and voice, but in her clothes and expression are the marks of the conservative. Yes, you’ve guessed it. Mistaken identity is the old rusty pivot upon which the plot turns.)
LOIS: (Starting) Oh, ’scuse me. I didn’t know you were here.
JULIE: Oh, hello. I’m giving a little concert—
LOIS: (Interrupting) Why didn’t you lock the door?
JULIE: Didn’t I?
LOIS: Of course you didn’t. Do you think I just walked through it?
JULIE: I thought you picked the lock, dearest.
LOIS: You’re so careless.
JULIE: No. I’m happy as a garbage-man’s dog and I’m giving a little concert.
LOIS: (Severely) Grow up!
JULIE: (Waving a pink arm around the room) The walls reflect the sound, you see. That’s why there’s something very beautiful about singing in a bathtub. It gives an effect of surpassing loveliness. Can I render you a selection?
LOIS: I wish you’d hurry out of the tub.
JULIE: (Shaking her head thoughtfully) Can’t be hurried. This is my kingdom at present, Godliness.
LOIS: Why the mellow name?
JULIE: Because you’re next to Cleanliness. Don’t throw anything please!
LOIS: How long will you be?
JULIE: (After some consideration) Not less than fifteen nor more than twenty-five minutes.
LOIS:
