Page:Anderson--Isle of seven moons.djvu/167

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BEHIND THE PICTURE
155

a job? You can dance. Me an' you together, why, we'd be a riot—cabaret or big time—we'd stop the show!"

"Besides, dearie," she went on, smoothing the disordered hair, "don't kid yourself into thinkin' that little Bright Eyes, who left you flat at the altar, is ever comin' back to youoo-ooh. No, sir, never on your tintype! She's pretty an'" (strange admission here for Carlotta) "she's good—probably—sort o' fell for her myself. But she's all for that sailor guy what's doin' the Robbie Crooso stunt. Gee! wouldn't it make anelluva movie!"

Catching sight of her own dishevelled condition in the mirror, she jumped up to make repairs, first with lipstick (1911! she was a pioneer!) and powder, then with his military brushes, which, looking over her shoulder, she plied with an implication of intimacy that riled him.

"Feel quite at home, don't you?" he jeered sullenly, "but if the governor comes——"

"I'll get the hook, don't I know it!—but about Little Agnes, now," she returned to his chair, "lissen, dearie,——"

"Though most people think I'm nothin' but a nut dancer, I can read 'em like a book "

"Did you ever—" he interrupted, only to be cut short in turn,—

"Now, don't get off that old wheeze about a chorus girl's readin' one once—you oughta be ashamed of yourself—I subscribe to a circ'lating lib'r'y an' don't short circuit me again, either." Then assuming the wisely guaging look of one to whom the human soul was quite transparent, she explained: