CHAPTER V
“Give me a name, any name you like,” said the madam as we went downstairs. “I want you to meet my girls. They’ll all be glad to see you again.”
I had but one name then, so I gave her that, and was introduced to the girls who were waiting in the dining room, the same six girls that had been arrested. If they noticed my embarrassment they did not show it. Two or three of them nodded, looked at me half curiously, half amused; the others, excepting Julia, did not even glance at me. She came over to where I stood, put her arms about my neck, and kissed me.
“Oh, you poor kid, I never felt so sorry for anything in my life.”
I was seated between the madam and Julia. The dinner was a marvel—fried chicken, hot biscuits, green vegetables. Beer was served, but I did not like it and the maid got me milk. The madam and Julia were the only ones that ate heartily. The others picked at their food, yawned, and looked at each other with low-lidded, feline calculating glances, seldom speaking. They looked and acted tired, worn, old, frustrated, disappointed. A big dark woman opposite me got a bottle from the sideboard and poured herself a drink of something.
“Now, my dear, be careful,” said the madam.
“Why didn’t you say that a year ago, Miss Kate?”
She took a piece of chicken in her fingers and went into a room across the hall where she played “Annie Rooney” on the piano and sang with her mouth full of food. Two others got up and went out. A blond girl pushed her chair back, lighted a cigarette, and began doing her fingernails. The maid came and whispered to another, who jumped up quickly and disappeared.
Julia had finished the chicken and was crunching the bones between her strong white teeth. The last of the tired-looking girls stood up, put her foot on a chair, and ran her arm, elbow deep, into her stocking. She came up with a small roll of bills which she threw across the table to the madam, sullenly. “Thank the Lord that’s over,” she said, and went out.
The madam counted the money carefully, bent over, and put both her arms under the table; when she straightened up the money had disappeared.