A Young Man's Heart by Cornell Woolrich Page B

tickets.”
    Eleanor stared interestedly at the hag, who, emboldened, instantly resumed her sing-song invocation. “Isn’t she afraid of the police?” she asked, after allowing it to continue for a moment. Such slight things, he was beginning to notice, could awaken Eleanor’s interest.
    “It’s run by the government.”
    Eleanor’s eyes sparkled. “I’d love to try my luck,” she exclaimed. “Couldn’t you get me one? I mean just a small one.”
    Blair opened his wallet and the old woman mumbled blessings on them and trotted off. He handed Eleanor the coupon, which was printed on thin, almost transparent paper.
    “I may as well tell you I don’t think it operates honestly.”
    “But I thought you said the gov—”
    “What is any government but a group of people? And in this country—”
    But she had already returned it to him. “You keep it for me so I won’t lose it. And tell me if I’ve won or not when the time comes. But if I shouldn’t win anything, and I seem to have forgotten about it, don’t remind me by mentioning it to me. Then it would be a disappointment.”
    Her attention reverted to the scene about them. “That couple standing on the corner can’t forget me. How dark she is. She shouldn’t use so much white powder, it makes her throat seem twice as brown.”
    Large numbers of people on both sides of the street were staring curiously at Eleanor. Not only those coming toward her from an opposite direction, as might have been expected, but also those walking in advance of the carriage, who would turn their heads, as though gifted with some sixth sense, and look over their shoulders before it had yet drawn abreast of them. And Blair could understand their looking at her, and felt that that was as it should be. She was wearing the clothes of the smartest city in the world, and her bared blond head was a beautiful sight in this land of dark women. He knew that he, too, had he been a passer-by, would have looked at her and wondered who she was. But being in the carriage, he merely looked at her and wondered if he understood her.
    Eleanor, meanwhile, was perfectly aware of the contagion of curiosity she was spreading about her as they slowly traversed one street after another. Nor did it seem unpleasant to her, as far as he could make out. Her satin shoes remained uplifted to the bench facing her with the hem of her dress allowing only the gold-silk of her insteps to be seen, and her chin was held neither low enough for humility nor high enough for disdain.
    “This is a novelty. I’ll rouge my lips while they’re looking at me. No, give me a cigarette instead.”
    He refused. “That’s entirely too fast for here. You don’t understand.” And he added almost apologetically, “Neither would they, you see.”
    “But are you serious, dear?” she exclaimed. She appeared vastly surprised.
    “Up home everyone is good, more or less,” he explained, “so appearances don’t matter so terribly. But down here the good take a great deal of care not to have themselves misjudged, because the bad are—well, pretty much beyond description. I mean there are all sorts of young ladies from the States who find the statutes here more hospitable, so—”
    “And they ride about in carriages with their friends just as you and I are doing?”
    “Why, yes,” he said embarrassedly.
    “If you think you’ve frightened me, I adore it,” she declared with gusto. “Just think of being mistaken for—oh, the darling, silly town! In New York there’s been no way of being sensational for years. Everyone at once was constantly doing whatever you wanted to do yourself. I’ve always wanted to be thought—er, sinister, without really being that way at all.”
    “Won’t you make it a little hard for me if you carry that out here?” he suggested. “When we get back to New York I’ll let you do anything you want to—”
    “Don’t let’s talk of going back there yet,” she begged. “Look. The women