Читать книгу There are Victories - Charles Yale Harrison - Страница 12

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“She is a convent girl,” the young men thought, “and therefore fair game.”

When Ruth entered a room, masculine eyes would suddenly dart up and stare at her willowy beauty with quick hot eagerness.

——A convent girl (they thought) a quiet cloistered convent, many women, girls, virginity, unspoiled freshness, dormitory girl-to-girl secrets, wonder what those young kids, no men handy, think about, talk about, do.

Of an evening, sometimes, when the drawing room was filled with men and women and the air was heavy with perfume and the dizzying odor of men (cigars, masculine cosmetics, the odor of bodies) she was asked to play for her mother’s guests. As she bent over the keyboard and beat the thrumming tom-tom deep in the bass of the Waldstein Sonata, her lips puckered in musical ecstasy; later, as her indomitable hair swayed to the tempo of the gay rondo, many pairs of masculine eyes would ravenously stare at her ivory hands, svelte waist, girl-breasts.

There was a burst of applause as she concluded the final movement and a husky voice said: “ ‘Pale Hands I Love’—play that, Ruth, will you please?”

At such times she saw glances of admiration, smiling faces, clapping hands. She did not, could not, see the wolfish gleam. And with a slight feeling of distaste she played the requested banal piece.