Butterfly Man. Lew Levenson

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СКАЧАТЬ who lounged in the solarium next to the game room. Judge Wardell faced Mr. Lowell. The judge was older than his host. His face was shrivelled and he spoke with a thin, crackling voice. He seemed to have something in common with Mr. Lowell, some characteristic expression, as if both thought the same thoughts.

      Gaston Powers, the artist, was tall, blond, with a concave face, hollowed by its high cheek bones. He painted murals, and was responsible for the pleasing modernistic effect of the music room. Pierre Fortand, the Hollywood dressmaker, had come with Powers. Pierre created styles more advanced than those of the Rue de la Paix. His circle of fashion devotees rivaled those of Chanel, Worth or Poiret. Privileged to drape rich fabrics on the slender, original forms of the stars, he performed this duty with ceremony and a faraway expression.

      Pierre ventured occasionally into the realm of interior decorating. He indulged a rare and exotic flair for personality in rooms, as a result of which Hollywood was blooming with such salons and bedchambers as no one but Pierre could imagine.

      ​Strange to say, Pierre was an unkempt young man with ragged fingernails and a sloppy collar. He complained that he never had time to dress properly. His only diversion, he said, was an evening at La Lowell's.

      Mr. Crofton, Mr. Lowell's secretary, was admitted to the circle as an equal. Of a good Kansas family, rich in wheat, Mr. Crofton had sprouted into Mr. Lowell's life one day in Paris, a day when Mr. Lowell quite mysteriously lost a highly paid secretary. Mr. Crofton's predecessor had married, causing Mr. Lowell to give him his congé, quite as peremptorily as he had just dismissed Mr. Pawne. Mr. Crofton had met Mr. Lowell in a gambling house, where he had tossed his last sou beneath a croupier's rake. He proposed to work out a loan from Mr. Lowell, acting as his secretary without pay until he could earn ninety thousand francs in credits.

      That was ten years before, in 1912; and Mr. Crofton, who had studied at Chicago, Columbia and the Sorbonne and who could speak eleven languages, was still Mr. Lowell's secretary.

      Mr. Crofton was a little larger than Mr. Pawne, his erstwhile assistant. He averred that his parents were in the Social Register, although no one took the trouble to investigate the truth of this assertion. He knew everyone, everywhere and frequently talked about the time he had danced with Queen Victoria of Spain during a passage of the Mediterranean. He was invaluable to Mr. Lowell, who, being a Texan, was frequently at a disadvantage in certain of the higher social circles.

      Gregory Gregg, the poet, completed the number of those present. He was very tall, dark, with curly black hair which rambled about a brachycephalic head exactly as a ​poet's hair should ramble. He had just recited his newest poem, "Nostalgia," as Kari began to serve the Lachrymae Christi.

      Gregory Gregg was, despite his coloring, soft-voiced and mousey. Had he had a less dominant mother, he might have become, thought Mr. Lowell, a notion salesman in a department store.

      However, his mother had desired a poet in the family and she had had her wish. He was now inditing an ode to Bacchus who, poor sprite, had been driven from the rich hillside vineyards of California to dismal tenement rooms, where his devotees concocted potent libations to a god in disgrace.

      Ken sat amid these guests on a high, square chrome and leather chair. He was flushed with the liquor and rather uncomfortable.

      "Play something for us, La," Pierre Fortand suggested. "Something in the midsummer mood, 'L'Après-midi d'un Faune,' s'il vous plait." The others chimed in with requests for this composition, and that.

      "I'll play," said Mr. Lowell, "if you'll all promise to drift away. Because the Judge is here tonight is no reason for formality. He has, in a manner of speaking, taken the veil. Haven't you, Minerva?"

      The Judge coughed dryly. "In the code of the Greeks, I am learned—" he snapped. The others, except Ken, laughed.

      "That's all I wanted to know," chirped Gregory Gregg. "I shall write a sonnet to swooning Justice … or should I say Justicia?"

      "You should," replied Judge Wardell. "Indeed—" he sipped the wine—"I sometimes find the gown I wear in ​court a little too drab for my taste. I should prefer scarlet—to match my disposition."

      Then he winked broadly—"This is all," he added, "entre nous."

      "Bored?" Gregory Gregg asked Ken. Mr. Lowell was entering the music room.

      "Why should I be bored?" Ken replied.

      "Your eyes lack lustre; you have said nothing since dinner."

      "I don't know what to say."

      "Come, chat with me. I want to hear you talk. Perhaps the garden will put you in the right mood."

      Mr. Lowell was playing softly; sobbing tones barely heard in the hushed night. A stone seat faced a mocking Pan in the formal garden, which one reached by means of narrow steps down the side of Star-ridge. Ken sat beside Gregory Gregg.

      "I'd like to be your friend," said Gregg.

      Ken was unaffected by the music or by the sweet fragrance of the summer flowers.

      "Understand me," the poet said. "I mean a true friend. You see, I m still enough of an ingénue to know how you feel tonight. This is your débût, isn't it?"

      "You mean—?"

      "I mean, this is the first time you've met La's friends face to face."

      "Yes."

      "Do you find yourself in harmony with them?"

      "Do you mean, do I like them?"

      "No—I mean—it's so hard, Kenneth, to say what I mean."

      "I don't get you."

      ​"That's because you are not sufficiently sensitive yet. You're too young. You haven't awakened. When you have chosen a career and understand yourself fully, you'll appreciate these lovely days and nights, this freedom from worry. La tells me you're to be a dancer. You are finely built and graceful. When you learn to dance with your mind as well as with your feet, you will find a happy rhythm in your life. Now if you will permit me to analyze you a bit further, you are trying and trying vainly to understand what we are, and why."

      Ken chuckled. "You talk just like Mr. Lowell." He tossed his head in the direction of the music room.

      "I do. He and I are old … friends. Nothing deeper than friendship, of course. We both love beauty. He is playing that organ now because he wants to create beauty. He is no longer young as you are. It's sweet to be young enough not to know and to be saddened by the fear of too much knowing. Listen … isn't it beautiful?"

      The music sobbed, sighed, ended.

      "Kenneth, learn to accept yourself such as you are. Face it. If you don't—I—I'm afraid for you—"

      "But I—"

      "You can't understand. I know." He stopped short. The night was very still. A faint, cool breeze sprang up. Gregory Gregg brushed back his long, black hair.

      "For your own sake, Kenneth, stay with us. If you don't—you'll be very unhappy—tragedy may even come into your life."

      Kenneth nervously turned away.

      "Do you believe me?" Gregg asked.

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