Free The House without the Door by Elizabeth Daly Page A

small place of business—lampshades, Gamadge thought, peering through the gloom of the area—was established in the basement. The combined smells of anesthetics and antiseptics billowed from a pet-hospital across the way.
    Gamadge rang the bell. An amiable foreigner in a long black house dress and comfortable slippers opened one of the doors and peered at him through gold-rimmed glasses.
    "Mr. Locke?" Gamadge spoke through an ascending blare of radios; there must be several, he thought, on every floor.
    "Yes, third storey, rear."
    Gamadge came in, and she closed the door. "Ma'am," he inquired, "do you ever feel the need for a silence like death?"
    "Is it not dreadful?" She shook a flaxen head. "Half de time, I can hardly hear my own radio."
    "What a shame. Is yours the quite loud one coming from the back parlour?"
    "Yes. We must not be selfish; people must have deir pleasure."
    "So they must." He climbed two steep flights of red-carpeted stairs, and knocked at a door. A resonant baritone voice told him to come in.
    He obeyed, and found himself confronting a young man of magnificent physique, who had discarded his coat, his collar, and his tie. He wore slacks and sandals, and a blue shirt tucked in at the neck. He was a young man with no claim whatever to good looks, but Gamadge thought that he would make up strangely and effectively. He had a small head, flattish pale features, tow-coloured eyebrows over chilly blue eyes, and tow-coloured hair. He was quite ready for Gamadge.
    "Have a seat," he said carelessly, indicating a hard chair. Gamadge sat in it, and Locke fell rather than sank upon a studio couch against the wall. This, which was upholstered in faded blue, the hard chair, a dresser, and a table, were—with the exception of a radiogram near the window—the only furnishings of the room. There was no floor covering, and the windows were fitted with dun-coloured shades.
    "I'm dog-tired." Locke settled his head against the blue cushions.
    "Your work must be very exacting." Gamadge spoke respectfully.
    "Exacting? I teach ballroom dancing, I work at summer resorts, I practice at my own work every day, and now I've just landed a job with the Diehl ballet."
    "No, really? Congratulations."
    "You like dancing?"
    "I'm a fan."
    "You fans don't know what the work is. If I hadn't the strength of a horse I'd have given up long ago. Of course all this, even the Diehl, is preparation; I'm working up my own choreography, and when I have capital I shall dance alone."
    "Really alone? No partner?"
    "I want no partner for my dance." He turned his head, and gazed into some dream of the future. Against the blue of the pillow, under the light of the unshaded bulbs, his face in profile looked like a modern plaster cast; ugly, interesting, all flat planes and rough modeling. "I have the hardest part of it done," he said. "A friend in an art school has designed costumes for me, and I know a girl who plays the piano. She'd tour with me. She has a first-rate sense of rhythm."
    "You're ambitious, Mr. Locke—admirably so."
    "Dancing is all I ever cared about, but you can't even dance without money. Not if you want an audience."
    "I suppose you're not telling what your dance is going to be like: descriptive, symbolic, classical? I haven't the knowledge to put my question intelligently."
    "It describes a personality and its development throughout the ages."
    "This is very tantalizing."
    "You won't see it unless I raise some money," said Locke, sombrely. "This war is going to set me back, and by the time I get going I may be too old to do my stuff. Dancing isn't a thing you can drop and pick up again. I ought to have had my chance five years ago."
    "Too bad Gregson wasn't interested."
    Locke was immediately alert. He sat up, got a packet of cigarettes out of his pocket, and offered it to Gamadge before he replied. Gamadge declined the cigarettes, and lighted one of his own. Locke pushed a brass dish towards him with his toe, and said