“And then, one evening, in came a seedy-looking man who made you think he’d seen better times and a fatter living. Always shaved clean, and smelled of talcum powder. But his clothes were brushed until there wasn’t a bit of nap left on them, I used to think when I was dancing with him and looking at his shoulder. He was an actor, out of a job, he told me. They tell you the story of their lives when they’re dancing with you.
“Once he came in downright hungry. I shared with him that night the dinner the management gave me.
“I got in the habit of looking for him, and sharing my dinner with him. I respected myself a lot because I was giving him dinner instead of him feeding me. Silly, wasn’t it?” She looked at Kirwin.
Kirwin nodded gravely. “I understand that perfectly,” he said. “You would feel that way. So should I, in your place.”
“Thanks!” said Mary Casey. “Well—you know—after you’ve fed a man when he’s hungry, you get to sort of think you own him. You feel like you’re his mother, you might say. I got to feeling that way about Teddy. I felt like he was mine. I don’t suppose I thought about marrying; I knew he couldn’t support me. But I never thought about anything that I’d be doing, way off in life, when we were older, without thinking about him being right there with me. You know what I mean? I just didn’t think we’d ever be anywhere without the other one being there, too. Not that he said anything much, only—‘I’m awful fond of you, kid!’ But I didn’t mind. I was fool happy, dancing afternoons with all sorts of men, and all the time thinking that pretty soon Teddy’d be coming in by the doorkeeper, and looking around for me—and then sit in the darkish restaurant eating part of my dinner—though it did used to leave me pretty hungry, for the dinner the management gave us wasn’t much on size. Some of the girls used to kick about those dinners; you’re awful hungry after you’ve been dragged around the floor for hours and hours by heavy-footed hicks. But the management laughed at the complaints; said the girls would keep their figures if they didn’t eat too much. I’ll say I kept mine! I was ’most starved every night when I got to bed. My stomach used to feel as if it was sticking to my backbone. I was on the floor every dance. I was popular with the men who came there. It isn’t that I’m pretty; I’m not. And so they look again to see what the deuce I am. And that gets a man’s goat—when he can’t make out what he likes about a girl.
“Anyhow, if I’d ever been pretty I’d have lost it by now. I’ve been so darned careful; and when a girl’s careful, and suspects everybody, she gets hard and mean looking. The other girls—those that aren’t careful—get hard and tough. It all comes to the same thing; they look the same way in the face. Women can’t look soft in the face unless they’re taken care of by their people.”
“When you are talking this way, you don’t look hard,” interrupted Kirwin.
“That’s because it’s a comfort to sit here and say everything that comes into my head. Most times, when I’m across a table from a man, I have to think before I open my mouth: ‘Will this give him a handle?’ And so I just say: ‘Oh! Isn’t this a lovely floor?’ And: ‘My! But you are a dandy dancer!’ When like as not he’s stepped all over me.”
“Men are brutes! They even step on the ladies’ toes!” the laughing Angier remarked.
“They step on more than their toes,” the girl countered. “They step on anything the girl gives them a chance to step on! At least, most of them do. I never saw but one who wouldn’t. And I lost him—lost sight of him, I mean—on account of losing his card.” She lifted her long and thick lashes of a golden brown that caught the light from the swinging oil lamps and formed a delicate nimbus around her serious eyes. “But I’m going to tell you about him. I’d like you to know I’ve met one man I could respect. Men who hang around dance halls not even a boob could think much of!