She
sang:
"I dreamt that I fell in a mar-arble pool
With nobles and swells on all si-i-ides."
She had slapped her rescuer's hands away then and groaned to learn
that she had driven off a famous plutocrat. But now he was back;
indeed he was in the pool now, and she had him on her hook. He
had grievously disappointed her by turning out to be a commonplace
young man with no gilt on his phrases. But one must be merciful
to a million dollars.
The next morning she dreamed of him as a suitor presenting her
with a bag of gold instead of a bouquet. Just as she reached for
it the telephone rang and a hall-boyish voice told her that it was
seven o'clock.
This was the midnight alarm to Cinderella, and she became again
a poor working-girl. She had to abandon her prince and run from
the palace of dreams to the studio of toil.
She was a trifle surly when she confronted Ferriday. He studied
her, smilingly queerly and overplaying indifference:
"Have a nice dinner last night?"
Kedzie fixed him with a skewery glare: "What's your little game?
Why did you turn up missing?"
"I had another engagement. Didn't you get my note?"
"Ah, behave, behave!" said Kedzie, then blushed at the plebeian
phrase. She was beginning to have a quickly remorseful ear. As soon
as she should learn to hear her first thoughts first, and suppress
them unspoken, she would be a made lady.
"Oh, you're a true artist, Anita," said Ferriday. "Nothing can
hinder your flight into the empyrean.
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