whether her interest in him was wholly that of the artist who chooses a dancing partner only because he is talented. That a woman of twenty-eight should care to be loved by a boy of seventeen was quite beyond Ken's comprehension.
He thought her "nice." She was, he believed, "attractive." His own fastidious nature made him displeased with her occasional carelessness in dress. She would appear at Delaney's clad in mannish slacks and a rough khaki shirt, with hair tossing this way and that as she danced. Her figure was trim enough but her face was unevenly moulded, puffed here and there, the aftermath of bygone drinking bouts, hard lovemaking and sometimes very little food.
Ken, of course, did not consciously criticize Anita's appearance. He thought her "nice."
This morning he thought her especially "nice." She was animate, warm, helpful, part of the ever-moving panorama, more to be treasured than these unchanging trees and mountains and patches of sage-covered sand. Because of her, this was the morning of a great day—his first day as a professional dancer, his first step toward fame.
He recalled the last time he had been driven over this foothill boulevard, Mr. Lowell beside him, Johnson's broad back curving above the pane of the glass separating chauffeur from passengers. He was much happier today. He had succeeded in surviving nearly four months of Hollywood, months of hard work, life between the drab walls of a furnished bedroom. The great and the near great had passed him by. He was not yet one of them. They had succeeded because they had worked hard, had defied their own weaknesses. He too—he thought this morning—would win in the same selfless way.
