Carmella Commands
“So you made it while dad’s away,” he said.
“I made it, and where are we going?”
“They say there’s a swell Western over at the Gaiety,” suggested Nicolo.
“But there’s a swell society comedy over to the Dante,” said Carmella. “Let’s go there.”
“That’s a punk place. Nobody goes there,” said Nicolo.
“But if they have a good play, that’s what we want to see. I don’t go to look at the crowd. Let’s go. I want to see Dolly Dutton—she’s in it.”
“Oh, all right!” agreed Nicolo, pretending vast weariness.
Carmella led him eagerly, with a swift pace that annoyed his shuffling gait. Still swiftly visioning the future, with Nicolo as a man of substance and affairs, she saw more clearly than ever before the need of educating him up to certain standards which he now lacked.
In the matter of movies, for instance. She hoped this summer to be able to lead him to new ideals of taste—away from the crime and adventure pictures which he now sought, up to, perhaps, even a liking for society drama. Costumes and furniture and manners in gorgeous quantities—these were the things that Carmella wanted on the screen. She followed with almost a fever of quick study those scenes where the modern social graces were most conspicuously emphasized.
[135]
