Dance and Skylark Read Online Free PDF

politely declined, while consenting to go a walk with him instead on one of her afternoons off; for the young man, though attractive, had a reputation for unconventional behaviour and she was well aware of the special dangers inherent in artists’ studios. A Beauty Queen could not betoo careful; for that matter—a film-star could not be too careful! Fluttering her eyelids slightly, Miss Smith faded out the long taffeta dress with puff sleeves and replaced it with a dark oblong upon which convolutions of light hurled themselves towards her, formed fantastic patterns, and at last resolved themselves into her own name. Starring Virginia Verity? Virtue? Vane?—Oh no, that was liable to misinterpretation—Valley? Vance? Virginia Vance, she decided, was almost perfect; in quaint gothic letters for a Period Picture, in square modern ones for a Tense Drama, in blue, in old gold, in rose, in emerald green for a piece in technicolor, the beautiful name pirouetted before her eyes.
    The girl, thought Mr. Runcorn, must surely have fallen asleep; and although he could but disapprove, some ancient courtesy forbade him to wake her. Instead he stared hard at the almost Grecian profile, stared and stared until suddenly inspiration came. He picked up his pen and began to write, firmly crossing out “pulchritude” and putting “callisthenics” instead.
IV
    The Factory down by the river was making beach-balls for Australia, which in six months’ time would be bouncing over the firm sands of Sydney. Children tawny as the sand would play with them, strong swimmerswould push them far out to sea, small Brad mans with improvised bats would smite them to tideline boundaries, swift brown girls chased by swift brown youths would toss them like Atalanta’s apple to the eager pursuers. Meanwhile it was Edna’s task to see that there was no flaw in them, and with deft fingers she drew them one by one over the nozzle of the compressor, turned on the air, and watched them swell till they were as big as ripe melons. It was a sight for the Garden-god, who surely has an eye for such things, when Edna lifted the many-coloured ball off the air nozzle and stood for a moment holding it before her. For in a splendid way they matched. There were no angles, no straight lines such as nature abhors; but tumescence in the happiest conjunction, a symphony of curves.
    In a light haze of french chalk a dozen women and girls worked on the bench with Edna, putting in the valves and rubber patches and blowing up the balls to test them. Close at hand Jim and Joe, who six years after the war still wore their green Commando berets, stood as it were at the head of the production line. Jim operated by hand a somewhat primitive-looking machine which lowered the formas into liquid latex, and after an appropriate interval transferred them to a homely little oven where they were dried by means of naked gas-jets in exactly the same way that one cooks a Sunday joint. When they were done Joe took charge of them and dipped them into a tank of water on top of which floated a scum of mixed rubber paint, iridescent like petrol in a pool. When they emerged from this bath they were rainbow-tinted with streaks and whorls of red, yellow, blue and green. After a second drying theywere peeled off’ the formas and passed to Edna and her women for testing.
    Upstairs in the packing-room eight more women were employed; and at busy seasons there would be at least another dozen at the long testing-bench. But to-day the work went leisurely in an atmosphere like that of a family party. The compressor kept up a low whine, and the air released from the beach-balls made an intermittent soft sigh, but since there was no noisy machinery everybody could talk to everybody else. When Jim in his harsh corncrake’s voice said: “Carrots is right. What we wants is ’ouses,” the conversation at once became general.
    â€œâ€™Ouses and a bit more