considerate too, and when he was drunk and wanted to elope to Greenwich she always talked him out of it. That was no way to get married.
At the theatre while they teased her about Carly everyone was friendlier than when she had been going with Lyle. Even Tessie who was too old for Carly but not for Lyle. Lyle was the big catch even though Carly was handsomer and rich too. Piselli, who Lyle had told her was a big shot in New York rackets and politics, treated Carly almost as friendly as Lyle at his speakeasy. It was Peggy, who always knew who was who, who told her he was heir to a tobacco fortune, and a member of the Racquet Club. Carly never mentioned either to her. She knew about the Racquet Club because Figente had told her how high up it was, and Lyle had said he always could be reached in a hurry through it because they would always know where he was.
The show closed the end of August and Joe Samuels asked her to go on the road with it but she refused. She had been in New York a year and her role in the show was small but, because of Lyle Bigelow, Lucy Claudel already was a Broadway name which explained, said Peggy Watson, echoing Broadway, why Beman, impressed by her society friends, engaged her as première danseuse for his revue Loves of 1922, starting rehearsals in November.
Lester Beman's greatest satisfaction was indeed in being on first-name relationship with members of the Social Register and using it as his personal address book even though his name was not in it. A shrewd showman, he knew which composers, designers, directors and cast would give a trite musical comedy style and a semblance of being up-to-date and artistic to attract the carriage trade, and those impressed by it. The photographs of his players appeared most often in Mode. Because of Lyle Bigelow, from whom he wanted backing as well as friendship, he decided to give Lucy the role of première danseuse in his new show instead of another dancer of whose technical talent he was more certain.
The engagement was exactly what Lucy wanted. Not only was it a decided step up on Broadway but another advantage was that rehearsals were not to begin until November as Beman was still trying to coax the French singer Simone Calvette away from her lover.
From August until the end of October Lucy was with Carly almost continuously except for work at Master's and when he had to be out at Meadowbrook with his polo friends. It was a perfect existence and she was glad that being in love was not at all like the
