Lucy, with professional patriotism for any performer, applauded loudly, sorry for the poor things.
"Cynski is really amazing," Mary Boyle, applauding, said to Semy. "How clever of him to combine in one ballet the rose is a rose of Gertrude Stein in the children, automatic response, and then the naive primitivism of a Rousseau fete in the two older girls."
But Semy, still annoyed at having been caught at a 1924 pissoir when it should have been a 1913 one, befuddled by this representation, only nodded, afraid to be exposed in another aesthetic error.
Before Cynski could spring an encore Figente signaled to the waiting band and freed his relieved guests.
"California, Here I Come" tootled Natchez Honeycutt, second only to Chigger Cane who was tied up at the Chennonceaux.
"Our dance, baby." Tall blond Rad Welford claimed Vida.
"That reminds me, Vida," said Lucy in Ranna's arms as the four stepped in place waiting for the room to swing out, "I had an offer to go to Hollywood. I said I'm a dancer not an actress but the Biggens' talent scout said it doesn't matter whether you can do anything."
"Tell me later," Vida said as she was swooped through an opening in the crush.
Herold and a girl collided with them. "Hey Vida, this guy Figente keeps quite a joint."
"He's the keeper of immoral rights," she flipped.
Rad squeezed her. "You're cute."
Her conscience twinged. It wasn't easy being a jazz baby. Exchanges of dancers polka-dotted the smoky air. "Amusing!"—"Interesting!"—"Really! Really!"—"Re-ahly!" "Rahly!" That was the universal language. The dancers, the columns, the Pompeian placques, and Figente in his toga were macabre.
"This place reminds me of the last days of Pompeii."
"Really!"
Everyone said it. Even the chorus girls who wanted to sound high-toned. Lucy never. She kept to the "my goodnesses" and "wells" to propel her laconic sentences. I'm a fine one to criticize, she thought, because I say "really" too. Am I a chameleon? No, I won't do it again, she resolved.
"Let's get out of here," Rad Welford whispered.
"No, I can't." She drew away, suddenly frightened, but reproaching herself for being old-fashioned which was no way to be in modern today.
