In a moment he would call Tana and they would pour into themselves a gay
and delicate poison which would restore them momentarily to the
pleasurable excitement of childhood, when every face in a crowd had
carried its suggestion of splendid and significant transactions taking
place somewhere to some magnificent and illimitable purpose.... Life was
no more than this summer afternoon; a faint wind stirring the lace
collar of Gloria's dress; the slow baking drowsiness of the veranda....
Intolerably unmoved they all seemed, removed from any romantic imminency
of action. Even Gloria's beauty needed wild emotions, needed poignancy,
needed death....
"... Any day next week," Bloeckman was saying to Gloria. "Here--take
this card. What they do is to give you a test of about three hundred
feet of film, and they can tell pretty accurately from that."
"How about Wednesday?"
"Wednesday's fine. Just phone me and I'll go around with you--"
He was on his feet, shaking hands briskly--then his car was a wraith of
dust down the road. Anthony turned to his wife in bewilderment.
"Why, Gloria!"
"You don't mind if I have a trial, Anthony.
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