V
MR. LOWELL swayed again so that Ken thought he would fall.
"Where have you been?" he finally cackled.
"Out riding."
"With whom?"
"One of the school kids."
Ken noticed that one of Mr. Lowell's eyes drooped. He was about to put an arm around the old man's shoulder and guide him to his own room, when Mr. Lowell snapped:
"A girl?"
"A girl," Ken replied, a note of defiance in his voice.
Mr. Lowell wrested himself away from Ken's embrace. He uttered an inchoate sound and his face became black. Saliva drooled from his lips and over his beard.
"I just happened to meet her in a drug store, that's all," Ken explained.
"You talked to her—you!" Mr. Lowell's hand was doubled into a fist.
"Why, of course, I did," Ken said, honestly.
"About me!" shrilly cried Mr. Lowell.
On the mantel was a French clock, a Watteau shepherdess holding aloft a disc, on the face of which toy hands of gold pointed to the minutes and hours. Mr. Lowell seized the disc from the hands of the shepherdess and hurled it at Ken.
"You can't talk about me!" Mr. Lowell screamed.
"No—I didn't," Ken lied. He stooped and picked up the shattered clock.
"Get out of here! You belong back in Texas, in the fields, shovelling cow dung. You're not fit to come into my house. Look what you've done to it. Tracked mud into it—"
"I've done nothing. I went for a ride, that's all."
"My friends were not good enough for you. No, you had to pick up some whore and take her in my car. I'll have Crofton sell it tomorrow."
"But I—"
"Don't explain. I've made a mistake. I wanted to be proud of you."
Ken quietly asked: "As proud as you are of Pierre Fortand?"
Mr. Lowell's eyes opened. His mouth dropped wide.
"Kenneth, you get out of here tonight, before I kill you!"
"All right."
"No one questions me here in Star-ridge. This is my castle. Here, I can do as I please. Men such as you met here tonight wouldn't dare say what you have just said to me."
Ken stood motionless.
"The trouble, Kenneth, is in you. You are neither fish nor fowl. You are a country lout—fit only to associate with pigs."
Ken's fists were clenched.
"You despise the beauty of the only love that matters. You'd rather wallow in a cesspool than live in a palace. Go ahead … go." Mr. Lowell swayed, moved slowly toward the bed.
"I don't want you," he said. "Get out!"
He collapsed on the bed. Ken turned away and left the room.
In the morning, Ken asked Johnson to drive him to the School of Terpsichore.
"Sure was some party you had las' night," commented the chauffeur. "That dressmaker fellow slept all night in the bath tub and Kari, he tells me some other man fell down the garden steps and lay in the bed of pansies all night."
Ken told Johnson he had slept in the servant's lodge. "'Tain't for you to let Mister Lowell know that," Johnson smiled.
Ken did not reply. His mind was busily trying to find escape from his dilemma. For he knew that he could not, nor did he want to, remain at Star-ridge.
Listlessly he worked in the classes. Just before noon he met Anita.
"Hello, Romeo," she laughed. "Was that you serenading outside my window all night long?" She laughed mockingly and Ken flushed.
"How about having lunch with me?" he asked.
"What for?"
"I want to work with you."
"Sure 'nough?" she asked.
"Sure 'nough, sister," Ken's voice warmed to enthusiasm.
"I'll be there," said Anita.
Sitting opposite him in the Gypsy tea-room on Western Avenue, Anita Rogers talked about herself. She was, she said, lazy. She didn't mind admitting she had tried everything. "I've modelled gowns up in Frisco. I worked as a masseuse in Seattle, as a waitress right here in Hollywood. Guess the trouble with me is I'm a good-time Jennie. Only thing that stops me now is poverty."
He noticed her cheap, flimsy dress, the square onyx ring on her finger, her spit-curl which fluttered in the electric fan's breeze.
"Olive and cream cheese sandwich," she ordered. "I need a few pounds here and there for my nude. I'm a sketch right now from not eating regular.
"Y'see, I cut out the rough stuff, kid, when I got cancelled last year. I'd taken it on the chin here and there, being a sap more often than not. A cluck who could hoof fell for little Nita's technique and paid for an education in dancing. The first year out, playing the sticks, was great. Then Gus walked out on me, and I teamed up with a dame. That finished me. I never could stand women. I'm a man's gal. So I began to hit the bottle in such places as Walla Walla and Devil's Gulch, or what have you. Now I'm living on a little insurance income. Do you think you wanta take a chance with me? Won't you be going off to New York or Europe with your old boy?"
Ken smiled. "That's washed up," he said.
"You're walking out on him?"
"He kicked me out—last night."
She said nothing for a long time. He lighted a cigarette.
"Forgive me for asking this question," Anita Rogers said, "but have you any money of your own? You know what you said last night about the valet filling your pockets."
"I have enough to last for a few weeks."
"Boy," she breathed. She kissed her finger tips, then traced the kiss on his lips. "I like you. You are regular. We'll work together—hard as hell. And what's more, I'll get booking for our act if I have to dance horizontally for every agent on the Coast. Come on, let's go!"
The day was unbearably long. At four o'clock, classes over, Anita proposed that she and Ken work together for an hour. She wanted him to watch her old vaudeville routine.
He sat on a bench in the bare practise hall. She wore a pair of shorts and a jersey silk shirt and danced with verve as he beat time with the palms of his hands. While she kicked and pirouetted and did a Russian dance, Ken watched the shadows lengthen through the high windows.
Late afternoon. A new adventure was beginning. He wished that he were not suffering the pangs of conscience. He wished he could freely forget the immediate past. He worried, fearing he was being unjust to Mr. Lowell … who, after all, had done him no apparent harm.
"You're not paying attention," Anita said, interrupting her dance. "Your rhythm is 'way off."
"I've got to talk to you," he said. "You did all the talking this noon."
"What's on your mind?"
"I ought to telephone Star-ridge. I haven't got a pair of sox or a handkerchief in the world, except in that house." She regarded him with a patent air of disbelief.
"Why don't you go back there tonight, talk it all over, and make up your mind?"
"No, I'm through," said Ken.
They were leaving the school together when Buddy Nolan called Ken.
"I'll run along," said Anita. "You better settle with Buddy. He's probably heard from Old Man River."
In Buddy's office sat Mr. Lowell. His face was white, his beard seemed whiter. Buddy excused himself and left Ken with the old man.
"Sit down, Kenneth," Mr. Lowell said. Kenneth sat down, completely calm.
"I came to ask your forgiveness," Mr. Lowell spoke slowly, as if a trace of bitter water lingered in his mouth. "I was drunk last night. Where did you sleep?"
"In the servant's quarters," Ken replied.
"I came myself to get you. I want you to come home."
"I'm sorry, Mr. Lowell. I can't go with you."
So quietly did this statement come that Mr. Lowell did not take it for the emphatic refusal which it was. He spluttered and could not reply.
"I thank you for everything, sir," Ken continued. "I'd like the clothes you bought for me."
"Where are you going? What are you going to do?"
"I'm going to stay here in Hollywood."
"I see." The old man picked up his hat. "Very well, I'll have Johnson deliver your clothes to you. Where shall I have them sent?"
"Send them here, sir. And thank you very much."
Mr. Lowell, who did not seem nearly so tall as on that day when Ken sat beside him in the Packard driving through the state of Texas, left the room, closing the door behind him.