U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [552]
"I wish I knew what he thought about anything. I've been working for him for years now and I don't know whether he's a genius or a stuffed shirt. . . . I wonder if he's going to be at Eleanor's. I want to get hold of him this evening for a moment. . . . That's a very good idea.
. . . Eveline, you always do me good one way or an-other."
"You'd better not go without phoning. . . . She's per-fectly capable of not letting you in if you come uninvited and particularly with a houseful of émigrée Russians in tiaras." Dick went to the phone and cal ed up. He had to wait a long time for Eleanor to come. Her voice sounded shril and rasping. At first she said why didn't he come to din-ner next week instead. Dick's voice got very coaxing.
"Please let me see the famous prince, Eleanor. . . . And I've got something very important to ask you about. . . . After al you've always been my guardian angel, Eleanor If I can't come to you when I'm in trouble, who can I come to?" At last she loosened up and said he could come but he mustn't stay long. "You can talk to poor J. Ward
. . . he looks a little forlorn." Her voice ended in a screechy laugh that made the receiver jangle and hurt his ear.
When he went back to the sofa Eveline was lying back against the pil ows soundlessly laughing. "Dick," she said,
"you're a master of blarney." Dick made a face at her, kissed her on the forehead and left the house.
-487-Eleanor's place was glittering with chandeliers and cut-glass. When she met him at the drawingroom door her smal narrow face looked smooth and breakable as a piece of porcelain under her careful ycurled hair and above a big rhinestone brooch that held a lace col ar together. From behind her came the boom and the high piping of Russian men's and women's voices and a smel of tea and charcoal. "Wel , Richard, here you are," she said in a rapid hissing whisper. "Don't forget to kiss the grandduchess's hand .
. . she's had such a dreadful life. You'd like to do any little thing that would please her, wouldn't you? . . . And, Richard, I'm worried about Ward . . . he looks so terribly tired . . . I hope he isn't beginning to break up. He's the type you know that goes off like that. . . . You know these big shortnecked blonds."
There was a tal silver samovar on the Buhl table in front of the marble fireplace and beside it sat a large oldish woman in a tinsel shawl with her hair in a pompadour and the powder flaking off a tired blotchy face. She was very gracious and had quite a twinkle in her eye and she was piling caviar out of a heaped cutglass bowl onto a slice of blackbread and laughing with her mouth ful . Around her were grouped Russians in al stages of age and decay, some in tunics and some in cheap business suits and some frowsty-looking young women and a pair of young men with slick hair and choirboy faces. They were al drinking tea or little glasses of vodka. Everybody was ladling out caviar. Dick was introduced to the prince who was an olivefaced young man with black brows and a little pointed black mustache who wore a black tunic and black soft leather boots and had a prodigiously smal waist. They were al merry as crickets chirping and roaring in Russian, French and Eng-lish. Eleanor sure is putting out, Dick caught himself thinking as he dug into the mass of big greygrained caviar. J. W. looking pale and fagged was standing in the cor-ner of the room with his back to an icon that had three
-488-candles burning in front of it. Dick distinctly remembered having seen the icon in Eleanor's window some weeks be-fore, against a piece of purple brocade. J. W. was talking to an ecclesiastic in a black cassock with purple trimmings who when Dick went up to them turned out to have a rich Irish brogue. "Meet the Archimandrite O'Donnel , Dick," said J. W. "Did I get it right?" The Archimandrite grinned and nodded. "He's been tel ing me about the monasteries