“Yes, I’m invited to ’n exclusive party ... artists and actors—real, famous ones that people talk about,” Blanche replied, not being able to resist the desire to voice her proudly anticipating mood.
“Fa-amous, huh,” Harry said, with a sneer. “Well, you’ll sure be outa place there, ’f they are.”
“Peddle your wise-cracks somewhere else,” Blanche responded, unruffled.
“We-ell, I don’t care what they are ’cept that you’d better not come skiddin’ in after breakfast,” her father broke in, gruffly.
What his girls did was their business as long as no one “had the goods on them” and they kept out of trouble, but at the same time he didn’t intend to stand for any open flaunting of their possible transgressions. If a girl came home just before dawn, at the latest, she might only have been “cutting up” at some wild party or night club, but if she returned later than that, then it was evident that she had stayed overnight with some man.
As Blanche stood before her mirror, engrossed in the half-piteous and half-brazenly hopeful ritual observed by most women—that of applying cosmetics to her face—a lyric rose and fell in her heart, separated by skeptical pauses. At last she had a chance to leap from the greasy, colorless weights of Ninth Avenue, and the cheaply frothy interludes of Broadway ... but was it only a fair-faced dream? Would the people in the other impending world laugh at her, or turn their backs? Again, all of them might turn out to be qualified versions of the group she had met at Clara’s—mischievous, sneering Helgins, weak and pouting Trussels, unwomanly Doras, Margarets indifferent to every one save the men at their sides, and perhaps another approach to Oppendorf—another intriguing but palely distant figure.
The lyric rose once more and slew the specters. What an expert she was at borrowing trouble! It was quite possible that at least two or three of the people whom she was to meet would act friendly toward her and invite her to other gatherings, or perhaps a really fetching man, more naked and decent than Helgin, would fall for her.
As she walked down Ninth Avenue to the Elevated station, the scene incited tinglings of disgust in her whereas, usually, she regarded it with a passively acceptant dislike, as the great, solid ugliness from which she could not escape. Now, different objects in the scene affected her as though she had been pummeled in the face. The garbage cans at one side of the entrances, frequently overbrimming with decayed fruit, soiled papers, and old shoes and hats; the pillars and tracks of the “L” road, stretching out like a still millipede, with smaller insects shooting over its back; frowsy women, with sallow, vacant faces, shouting down from upper windows; dirt-streaked boys, wrangling and cursing in hallways; drab blocks of buildings cramped together, like huge, seething, shoddy boxes; and clusters of youths on each corner, leering as though they could scarcely control the desire to leap upon her.
All of it scraped against her nerves. Why had she remained so long within it?—it should have become unendurable years ago. Well, what choice had she ever had?—an unpleasant hall room in some rooming-shack. She could not afford more than that. But why, oh, why, was she so depressed on this evening of all others—this evening when for the first time she had something novel and promising to look forward to? The lyric started again and the black pause terminated. She became more in tune with an insidious, dodging gayety that somehow survived the grossness of Ninth Avenue and sounded in the mildly warm air of the late spring evening. In the dark-brown duvetyn dress that stopped at her knees, black chiffon turban, flesh-colored stockings and brown pumps, she could almost have been mistaken for some society girl on a slumming tour.
When she reached Margaret’s studio, Helgin and Oppendorf had already arrived and were immersed in a game of dice for dimes, while Margaret finished her toilette. The studio had a low, broad couch covered with dark green taffeta and batik cushions, and gaudily painted furniture, and a little kitchenette and bathroom adjoined it. Helgin greeted Blanche in the affable boyish way which he could affect for moments—the miraculous atom of humility sometimes flitting to the surface of his poised urbanities.