Reassured by her tone, he sat down and faced her.
"No, you weren't. It wasn't a good performance, Panchita. I've always told you the truth and I've got to go on doing it."
"Go ahead, you're not telling me anything I don't know. I've got my finger on the pulse of this house. I know every rise and fall of its temperature. But I can't always be up in G, can I?"
"No, but you can't stay down at zero too long."
She dropped her hand to the edge of the dressing table and looked at it. Her face, with the hair strained back, the rouge gone, looked withered and yellow. Crowder eyed it anxiously.
"Sick? Forget it! I never was better in my life."
"Then why are you off your work--why do you act as if you didn't care?"
"Can't I have a part I hate? Can't I get weary of this old joint with its smoke and its beer? God!" She began to pull the pins out of her hair and fling them on the dresser. "I'm human--I've got my ups and downs--and you keep forgetting it."
"Stop talking about me--I'm sick of it," she cried, and snatching up the comb began tearing it through her hair.
"It's nerves," said Crowder. "Everything shows it. The way you're combing your hair does."
"If you don't let me alone I'll put you out--all of you nagging and picking at me; a saint couldn't stand it!" Crowder rose, but she whirled round on him, the comb held out in an arresting hand. "No, don't go yet. I'll give you another chance. I want to ask you something. I saw a woman the other day and I want to know who she is--at least I don't really want to know, but she'll do as well as anything else to change the subject. Tall with yellow sort of dolly hair and a dolly face. Dark purple dress with black velvet edges, lynx furs and a curly brimmed hat with a green paradise plume falling over one side."
"Well, that's funny! You might have asked me forty others and I'd not have known. But thanks to your vivid description I _can_ tell you--I saw her yesterday afternoon in those very togs. It's the youngest Alston girl."
"One of the two daughters of George Alston. They're orphans, live in a big house on Pine Street. The one you saw was Chrystie. What do you want to know about her?"
Pancha, gathering her hair in one hand, began to whisk it round into a knot. Her head was down bent.