The girls come in. Art stops playing, and almost immediately takes up a petty quarrel, where he had last left it, with Helen. Bona, black-hair curled staccato, sharply contrasting with Helen’s puffy yellow, holds Paul’s hand. She squeezes it. Her own emotion supplements the return pressure. And then, for no tangible reason, her spirits drop. Without them, she is nervous, and slightly afraid. She resents this. Paul’s eyes are critical. She resents Paul. She flares at him. She flares to poise and security. “Shall we be on our way?” “Yes, Bona, certainly.” • • • • • The Boulevard is sleek in asphalt, and, with arc-lights and limousines, aglow. Dry leaves scamper behind the whir of cars. The scent of exploded gasoline that mingles with them is faintly sweet. Mellow stone mansions over-shadow clapboard homes which now resemble Negro shanties in some southern alley. Bona and Paul, and Art and Helen, move along an island-like, far-stretching strip of leaf-soft ground. Above them, worlds of shadow-planes and solids, silently moving. As if on one of these, Paul looks down on Bona. No doubt of it: her face is pale. She is talking. Her words have no feel to them. One sees them. They are pink petals that fall upon velvet cloth. Bona is soft, and pale, and beautiful. “Paul, tell me something about yourself—or would you rather wait?” “I’ll tell you anything you’d like to know.” “Not what I want to know, Paul; what you want to tell me.” “You have the beauty of a gem fathoms under sea.” “I feel that, but I dont want to be. I want to be near you. Perhaps I will be if I tell you something. Paul, I love you.” The sea casts up its jewel into his hands, and burns them furiously. To tuck her arm under his and hold her hand will ease the burn. “What can I say to you, brave dear woman—I cant talk love. Love is a dry grain in my mouth unless it is wet with kisses.” “You would dare? right here on the Boulevard? before Arthur and Helen?” “Before myself? I dare.” “Here then.” Bona, in the slim shadow of a tree trunk, pulls Paul to her. Suddenly she stiffens. Stops. “But you have not said you love me.” “I cant—yet—Bona.” “Ach, you never will. Youre cold. Cold.” Bona: Colored; cold. Wrong somewhere. She hurries and catches up with Art and Helen. 4