U.S.A_ - John Dos Passos [582]
"Ada, I want to go home."
"I thought you and I and George might have dinner together." Mary was seeing blurred faces getting big as they came towards her, changing shape as they went past, fading into the gloom like fish opening and closing their mouths in an aquarium.
"How about it? Miss Cohn, have you seen Charles Ed-ward Holden around? He's usual y quite a feature of Eve-line's parties." Mary hated George Barrow's doggy pop-eyed look when he talked. "Now there's a sound intel-ligent fel ow for you. I can talk to him al night." Ada narrowed her eyes as she leaned over and whis-pered shril y in George Barrow's ear. "He's engaged to be married to somebody else. Eveline's cut up about it. She's just living on her nerve."
"George, if we've got to stay" Mary said, "get me another cocktail." A broadfaced woman in spangles with very red cheeks who was sitting on the couch beside Mary leaned across and said in a stage whisper, "Isn't it dreadful? . . . You know I think it's most ungrateful of Holdy after al Eve--554-line's done for him . . . in a social way
. . . since she took him up . . . now he's accepted everywhere. I know the girl . . . a little bitch if there ever was one. . . . not even wealthy."
"Shush," said Ada. "Here's Eveline now. . . . Wel ) Eveline dear, the captains and the kings depart. Soon there'l be nothing but us smal fry left."
"She didn't seem awful bright to me," said Eveline, dropping into a chair beside them.
"Let me get you a drink, Eveline dear," said Ada. Eveline shook her head.
"What you need, Eveline, my dear," said the broadfaced woman, leaning across the couch again, ". . . is a good trip abroad. New York's impossible after January . . . I shan't attempt to stay. . . . It would just mean a nervous breakdown if I did."
"I thought maybe I might go to Morocco sometime if I could scrape up the cash," said Eveline.
"Try Tunis, my dear. Tunis is divine."
After she'd drunk the cocktail Barrow brought Mary sat there seeing faces, hearing After she'd drunk the cocktail Barrow brought Mary sat there seeing faces, hearing voices in a blank hateful haze. It took al her attention not to teeter on the edge of the couch. "I real y must go." She had hold of George's arm crossing the room. She could walk very wel but she couldn't talk very wel . In the bedroom Ada was helping her on with her coat. Eveline Johnson was there with her big hazel eyes and her teasing singsong voice. "Oh, Ada, it was sweet of you to come. I'm afraid it was just too boring. . . . Oh, Miss French, I so wanted to talk to you about the miners . . . I never get a chance to talk about things I'm real y interested in any more. Do you know, Ada, I don't think I'l ever do this again. . . . It's just too boring." She put her long hand to her temple and rubbed the fingers slowly across her forehead. "Oh, Ada, I hope they go home soon. . . . I've got such a head-ache."
"Oughtn't you to take something for it?"
-555-"I wil . I've got a wonderful painkil er. Ask me up next time you play Bach, Ada . . . I'd like that. You know it does seem too sil y to spend your life fil ing up rooms with il assorted people who real y hate each other." Eveline Johnson fol owed them al the way down the hal to the front door as if she didn't want to let them go. She stood in her thin dress in the gust of cold wind that came from the open door while George went to the corner to get a cab. "Eveline, go back in, you'l catch your death," said Ada. "Wel , goodby . . . you were darlings to come." As the door closed slowly behind her Mary watched Eveline Johnson's narrow shoulders. She was shivering as she walked back down the hal .
Mary reeled, suddenly feeling drunk in the cold air and Ada put her arm round her to steady her. "Oh, Mary," Ada said in her ear, "I wish everybody wasn't so un-happy."
"It's the waste," Mary cried out savagely, suddenly able to articulate. Ada and George Barrow were helping her into the cab.