U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [524]
"We must only remember the pleasant beautiful things, Margie." Madame Esther's house was a big old frame house with
-417-wide porches and cracked shingle roofs. The blinds were drawn on al the grimy windows. Agnes knocked at a
little groundglass door in back. A thin spinsterish woman with grey bobbed hair opened it immediately. "You are late," she whispered. "Madame's in a state. They don't like to be kept waiting. It'l be difficult to break the chain."
"Has she had anything from Frank?" whispered Agnes.
"He's very angry. I'm afraid he won't answer again. . . . Give me your hand." The woman took Agnes's hand and Agnes took Margo's
hand and they went in single file down a dark passageway that had only a smal red bulb burning in it, and through a door into a completely dark room that was ful of people breathing and shuffling.
"I thought it was going to be private," whispered Margo. "Shush," hissed Agnes in her ear. When her eyes got accustomed to the darkness she could see Madame Esther's big puffy face swaying across a huge round table and faint blurs of other faces around it. They made way for Agnes and Margo and Margo found herself sitting down with somebody's wet damp hand clasped in hers. On the table in front of Madame Esther were a lot of little pads of white paper. Everything was quiet except for Agnes's heavy breathing next to her.
It seemed hours before anything happened. Then
Margo saw that Madame Esther's eyes were open but al she could see was the whites. A deep baritone voice was coming out of her lips talking a language she didn't understand. Somebody in the ring answered in the same lan-guage, evidently putting questions. "That's Sidi Hassan the Hindu," whispered Agnes. "He's given some splendid tips on the stockmarket."
tips on the stockmarket."
"Silence," yel ed Madame Esther in a shril woman's voice that almost scared Margo out of her wits. "Frank is waiting. No, he has been cal ed away. He left a message that al would be wel . He left a message that tomorrow
-418-he would impart the information the parties desired and that his little girl must on no account take any step with-out consulting her darling Agnes." Agnes burst into hysterical sobs and a hand tapped
Margo on the shoulder. The same greyhaired woman led them to the back door again. She had some smel ingsalts that she made Agnes sniff. Before she opened the groundglass door she said, "That'l be fifty dol ars, please. Twentyfive dol ars each. . . . And Madame says that the beautiful girl must not come any more, it might be dan-gerous for her, we are surrounded by hostile influences. But Mrs. Mandevil e must come and get the messages. Nothing can harm her, Madame says, because she has the heart of a child." As they stepped out into the dark al ey to find that it was already night and the lights were on everywhere Margo pul ed her fur up round her face so that nobody could recognize her.
"You see, Margie," Agnes said as they settled back into the deep seat of the old Rol s,
"everything is going to be al right, with dear Frank watching over us. He means that you must go ahead and marry Mr. Margolies right away.""Wel , I suppose it's no worse than signing a three-year contract," said Margo. She told the chauffeur to drive as fast as he could because Sam was taking her to an open-ing at Grauman's that night. When they drove up round the drive to the door, the first thing they saw was Tony and Max Hirsch sitting on the marble bench in the garden. "I'l talk to them," said Agnes. Margo rushed upstairs and started to dress. She was sitting looking at herself in the glass in her stepins when Tony rushed into the room. When he got into the light over the dressingtable she noticed that he had a black eye. "Taking up the gentle art, eh, Tony?" she said without turning around. Tony talked breathlessly. "Max blacked my eye be--419-cause I did not want to come. Margo, he wil kil me if you don't give me one thousand dol ars. We wil not leave the house til you give us a check and we got to have some cash