Part 37 (2/2)
She leaned against the wall and placed her hand over the region of her lace yoke and heart, as if she would regulate their heaving.
A flash of cerise plume, a jangle of chatelaine jewelry, and Ysobel disappeared behind one of the doors, her many-angled silhouette flas.h.i.+ng against the far side of the ground gla.s.s.
Della breathed in deep and gulped in her dry, hot throat; her fingers, the damp cold born of nervousness, curled in toward her warm palms. She daubed at her lips with a handkerchief.
Simultaneously a door opposite her opened, and a short, bullet-headed figure in a light checked suit, and a diamond horseshoe scarf-pin that caught the points of light stepped out into the pale nimbus cast by the white signal-light of an up-going elevator.
With a gasp that caught in her throat Della darted in her too narrow skirt across the corridor, reached out, and grasped the light-gray coat-sleeve.
”Look,” she cried, thrusting herself between him and the trellis-work of the elevator-shaft and throwing back her head so that her bare neck, soft as the breast feathers of a dove, rose and fell with a dove's agitated breathing, ”Look--I'm here!”
The short figure turned on his heel and looked up at her, his shoulder-line a full three inches below hers, and his small, predaceous eyes squinting far back into his head.
”Gad--what?”
”I--I'm here--sir--don't you remember--me--I'm here.”
He regarded her with the detailed appraisal of the expert, and his glance registered points in her favor.
”Gad!” he repeated.
”Don't--you remember--me--sir--don't--”
”Not bad for a big girl--are you--eh?”
”Don't you remember?”
”Sure--you're the little girl I met out West--didn't I?--two seasons ago with--”
”No--no--no! Don't you remember me now?”
She tore her hat backward from its carefully adjusted tilt, so that it revealed the bra.s.sy gold of her hair, and took a step toward him.
”_Now_ don't you remember?”
”Sure--sure--you're the little girl from--sure I'd remember a big little girl like you anywhere.”
”You remember now? On the twenty-eight-hour accommodation out of St.
Louis. We--I got on at Terre Haute and sat across from you while he--they made up the berth, and you said--”
”Could I forget a big little queen like you! You've grown to a real big girl, ain't you? Come back in my office, sister. That's how much I think of you--with a whole company waitin' for me over at the Gotham Theater--come in!”
”I--just got here--Mr.--Mr.--”
”Myers, if anybody should ask you. That's who you're dealin' with--Hy Myers, if you should happen to forget.”
”Ain't it funny, Mr. Myers, my runnin' into you right off. I never thought I'd find you in this town. My little sister I was tellin' you about will be here soon and--”
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