Отрывок из книги
James Huneker
Published by Good Press, 2019
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She ate everything they brought her at the luncheon table. "Starved, that's what I am. Nothing since last night." She was glad to be alone at table. She wished to think over the situation. Her money wouldn't last long. What then! Not for a moment did she consider the possibility of a complaisant rich man. She knew her value in that direction; always, or nearly always, having a man messing about you! No, she preferred her liberty, the most precious liberty of sleeping solo, of arising in the morning alone. She swallowed her demi-tasse and found Stone at the door.
"Let me laugh, too," she begged. "I was thinking," he explained, "of an old maid aunt of mine who used to pray the Lord she wouldn't die guessing." Easter stopped and unrestrainedly roared. He was scandalized. "Hurry up," he expostulated. "We shall be late, otherwise." But he was secretly elated at the quick-fire success of his joke. A smart girl, that; she will go far—perhaps too far. They went into the Conservatoire Cosmopolitaine. The door was opened by a polite coloured man. He said Madame was busy just then. Wouldn't they wait in the reception room? Stone called the old man "George" and gave him a cigarette. The room was on the first floor facing the entrance hall. At the stroke of four gabble was heard. Girls and young men with fiddle cases and music-rolls tumbled down stairs, while fresh classes were forming. A weary or bored instructor bustled among his pupils. A gong struck. "Now, ladies, now gentlemen," called out George. "Upstairs, please, for Monsieur Lapoul's class."
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