American fiction -- 20th century; Manhattan (New York, N.Y.) -- Fiction; Women artists -- Fiction
"There comes Paul Godard! Lord! with that creature Blanche in his car.
Don't stare, Mona, please," begged her brother. "Don't be stupid," she
answered, "you dear old priest. I'll look. The woman won't hurt me."
Mona measured the handsome, bold dancer, over-dressed, bejewelled and
resplendent in a picture hat, who majestically moved up the terrace
followed by Paul and the maître-d'hôtel. Paul pretended not to see
Ulick, and Ulick turned the other way. He wasn't interested in Paul
or his concubines, though he still recalled with a sullen rage the
caddish behaviour of Godard the night he made Easter half-drunk; that,
and the inglorious hat episode he could never forgive nor forget. "So
he didn't sail, after all," he muttered. But if he was indifferent,
the young girl was not. "Is that the rich Mr. Godard I read of in the
newspapers?" she asked Ulick who couldn't repress a slight shudder
of disappointment. "She reads the newspapers like any other American
virgin, and she speaks of money! Hopeless, all these dove-eyed maidens,
with their profiles of a hawk; a sweet, domesticated hawk, a hawk all
the same, ready to swoop down--" "Oh let's go home brother," broke in
Mona, irrelevantly. She had sensitively noticed the inattention of her
new friend and she was wounded without giving herself any reason for
her slight feeling of resentment. They went away. Ulick accompanied
them to the gate at 72nd Street. Mona gave him a wan smile at parting.
Milton, as usual, was unaffectedly hearty. He was fond of Ulick and
had made a vow to save his soul from the eternal bonfire. She seemed
to like me at first, said Ulick after he left them, though she didn't
invite me to call. Oh Lord, I wonder what mischief Easter Brandès is up
to at this minute? Her name revived odious memories. Again that Paul
Godard. To the devil with the exasperated poodle. Ulick went to the
Utopian Club.
V
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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