Читать книгу Streets of Night онлайн

40 страница из 53

"I suppose she's in love with him," she said. "It's a good thing she makes her own living."

"But, don't you think it's dreadful?"

"How can we tell? But, anyway, I must run along. Aunt M. always expects me at twelve every Sunday and she thinks I have come to some dreadful end if I don't get there on the dot."

Nan was out in the street again. A dusty wind had come up and was making dead leaves and scraps of newspapers dance in the gutters, and tearing ragged holes in the clouds. O how poor Fitzie gets on my nerves, Nan was saying to herself, and a picture flashed through her mind of Fitzie opening her eyes wide, rapt, and saying, pausing with her mouth open a little between the words—Like a young Greek god.

She walked over to Beacon Street and down the row of houses that faces the Public Garden, looking now and then into front windows massed with ferns and autumn flowers. On small wellcleaned windowpanes a reflection of sky and clouds, shadows of sombredressed people passing, fleeting glint of limousines, then, beside a bunch of yellow curlypetalled chrysanthemums the face of Aunt M. Nan thought how ashy and wrinkled it looked beside the yellow flowers. The face smiled and bobbed showing a straight part and hair steelgrey slicked against the head on either side. Nan pulled at the shining brass knob of the bell. Immediately the door opened.