"
"I've been told that about moving pictures."
"The glare of the silver-foil reflectors is unbearable," she looked up,
with a pointed and famous effect. "But you don't like me?"
"I do; aside from that, though, I'm not sure; probably because you are
so remote and cold."
"Thank God!" she replied. "You haven't stopped to think where I'd be if
I weren't. And yet, no one, in their work, is supposed to be more
emotional. It's funny, and I don't pretend to understand. The trouble
with me is that I have no life of my own: ever since I was sixteen I've
done what directors told me, for the public; it is time I had some
private feelings."
"It must be a nuisance," he agreed.
Another dance began, but neither of them stirred; from where Lee sat
the long doors were panels of shifting colors and movement. The music
beat, fluctuated, in erratic bars. A deep unhappiness possessed him, an
appalling loneliness that sometimes descended on him in crowds. Even
Fanny, the thought of his children, could not banish it. Above the drum
he thought he could hear the sibilant dissatisfaction of the throng
striving for an eternity of youth. The glass about the porch, blotted
with night, was icy cold, but it was hot within; the steam pipes were
heated to their full capacity, and the women's painted and powdered
faces were streaked--their assumption of vitality and color was running
from them.
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