In spite of the reassurance¹ that he would be clothed Pat approached the rendezvous² with uneasiness. In his young and impressionable years he had looked through a peep-hole into a machine where two dozen postcards slapped before his eyes in sequence. The story unfolded was Fun in an Artist’s Studio. Even now with the strip tease a legalized municipal project, he was a little shocked at the remembrance, and when he presented himself next day at the Princess’s bungalow³ at the Beverly Hills Hotel it would not have surprised him if she had met him in a turkish towel. He was disappointed. She wore a smock and her black hair was brushed straight back like a boy’s.

Pat had stopped off for a couple of drinks on the way, but his first words: ‘How’ya Duchess?’ failed to set a jovial⁴ note for the occasion.

‘Well, Mr Hobby,’ she said coolly, ‘it’s nice of you to spare me an afternoon.’

‘We don’t work too hard in Hollywood,’ he assured her. ‘Everything is “Ma?ana”— in Spanish that means tomorrow.’

She led him forthwith into a rear apartment where an easel stood on a square of canvas by the window. There was a couch and they sat down.

‘I want to get used to you for a minute,’ she said. ‘Did you ever pose before?’

‘Do I look that way?’ He winked⁵, and when she smiled he felt better and asked: ‘You haven’t got a drink around, have you?’

The Princess hesitated. She had wanted him to look as if he needed one. Compromising, she went to the ice box and fixed⁶ him a small highball. She returned to find that he had taken off his coat and tie and lay informally upon the couch.

‘That is better,’ the Princess said. ‘That shirt you’re wearing. I think they make them for Hollywood — like the special prints they make for Ceylon and Guatemala. Now drink this and we’ll get to work.’

‘Why don’t you have a drink too and make it friendly?’ Pat suggested.

分享到：