U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [581]
"What sort of a man is a man of my sort?" said George Barrow with fake humility, so Mary thought. "That's what I often ask myself.""Oh, I don't want to argue . . . I'm sick and tired of arguing. . . . Get me another cock-tail, George." He got up obediently and started threading his way
across the room. "Now, Mary, don't row with poor George. . . . He's so sweet. . . . Do you know, Margo Dowling real y is here . . . and her husband and Rodney Cathcart . . . they're always together. They're on their way to the Riviera," Ada talked into her ear in a loud stage whisper. "I'm sick of seeing movie actors on the screen," said Mary, "I don't want to see them in real life." Ada had slipped away. George was back with two more cocktails and a plate of cold salmon and cucumbers. She wouldn't eat anything. "Don't you think you'd better, with al the drinks?" She shook her head. "Wel , I'l eat it myself. . . . You know, Mary," he went on, "I often wonder these days if I wouldn't have been a happier man if I'd just stayed al my life an expressagent in South Chicago and married some nice workinggirl and had a flock of kids. . . . I'd be a wealthier and a happier man today if I'd gone into business even." "Wel , you don't look so badly off," said Mary. "You know it hurts me to be attacked as a laborfaker by you reds. . . . I may be-lieve in compromise but I've gained some very substantial dol arsandcents victories. . . . What you communists won't see is that there are sometimes two sides to a case."
-552-"I'm not a partymember," said Mary.
"I know. . . . but you work with them. . . . Why should you think you know better what's good for the miners than their own tried and true leaders?" "If the miners ever had a chance to vote in their unions you'd find out how much they trust your sel out crowd." George Barrow shook his head. "Mary, Mary . . . just the same headstrong warmhearted girl."
"Rubbish, I haven't any feelings at al any more. I've seen how it works in the field. . . . It doesn't take a good heart to know which end of a riotgun's pointed at you."
" Mary, I'm a very unhappy man."
"Get me another cocktail, George."
Mary had time to smoke two cigarettes before George came back. The nodding jabbering faces, the dresses, the gestures with hands floated in a smoky haze before her eyes. The crowd was beginning to thin a little when George came back al flushed and smiling. "Wel , I had the pleasure of exchanging a few words with Miss Dowl-ing, she was most charming. . . . But do you know what Red Haines tel s me? I wonder if it's true. . . . It seems she's through; it seems that she's no good for talkingpic-tures . . . voice sounds like the croaking of an old crow over the loudspeaker," he giggled a little drunkenly.
"There she is now, she's just leaving."
A hush had fal en over the room. Through the dizzy
swirl of cigarettesmoke Mary saw a smal woman with blue eyelids and features regular as those of a porcelain dol under a mass of paleblond hair turn for a second to smile at somebody before she went out through the sliding doors. She had on a yel ow dress and a lot of big sapphires. A tal bronzefaced actor and a bowlegged sal owfaced little man fol owed her out, and Eveline Johnson talking and talking in her breathless hectic way swept after them. Mary was looking at it al through a humming haze like seeing a play from way up in a smoky balcony. Ada came
-553-and stood in front of her rol ing her eyes and opening her mouth wide when she talked. "Oh, isn't it a wonderful party. . . . I met her. She had the loveliest manners . . . I don't know why, I expected her to be kinda tough. They say she came from the gutter."
"Not at al ," said George. "Her people were Spaniards of noble birth who lived in Cuba."
"Ada, I want to go home," said Mary.
"Just a minute. . . . I haven't had a chance to talk to dear Eveline. . . . She looks awful y tired and nervous today, poor dear." A lilypale young man brushed past them laughing over his shoulder at an older woman cov-ered with silver lamé who