Her only
comfort was that the Silsby dancers had been placed early enough
on Mrs. Noxon's program for her to have failed in time to get home
the same day. She hated Newport now. It had not been good to her.
New York was home once more.
"When's the next train to New York?" she asked a porter.
"It's wint," said the porter. "Wint at four-five."
"I said when's the next train," Kedzie snapped.
"T'-marra' marnin'," said the porter.
"My Gawd!" said Kedzie. "Have I gotta spend the night in this hole?"
The porter stared. He was not used to hearing Mecca called a hole.
"Well, if it's that bad," he grinned, "you might take the five-five
to Providence and pick up the six-forty there. But you'll have to
git a move on."
Kedzie got a move on. The train swept her out along the edge of
Rhode Island. She knew nothing of its heroic history. She cared
nothing for its heroic splendor. She thought of it only as the
stronghold of an embattled aristocracy. She did not blame Miss
Silsby for her disgrace, nor herself. She blamed the audience,
as other actors and authors and politicians do. She blazed with
the merciless hatred of the rich that poor people feel when they
are thwarted in their efforts to rival or cultivate or sell to
the rich. Their own sins they forget as absolved, because the
sins have failed. It is the success of sin and the sin of success
that cannot be forgiven.
The little dancer whose foot had slipped on the wet marble of
wealth was shaken almost to pieces by philosophic vibrations too
big for her exquisite frame.
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