Bells of Avalon by Libbet Bradstreet Read Free Book Online Page A

sigh.
                  “Look at this child’s face , Felix.”
                  “Oh, I see it,” he crowed and lifted his hands to the air. 
                  “She’s even lovelier in person, isn’t she?”
                  “Indeed she is.”               
                  “The face of angel. Oh, and look at her precious nose. Just like a little acorn. Oh, what I wouldn’t give to have a little acorn for a nose.  Who does she look like? Don’t tell me—I know it. The Girl with the Bee-Stung Lips. ”
                  “Mae Murray, oh no,” he disagreed, but took a compulsory glance at Katie to check for the resemblance in question. “Oh well could be, but with none of that Teutonic chin. No, she’s much more the face of Esther Ralston.”
                  “Oh but Felix , she wasn’t a Teuton. Mae was a Hungarian, couldn’t speak a stitch of English until they made her for the talking pictures.”
                  “No, no she wasn’t,” he grumbled, “she’s a Block Island Dutch, real name was Akerman? Abrahmsen, maybe.” 
                  “Oh that doesn’t sound right. I’m almost sure she’s a— was a Hungarian.”
                  “Hell, Irene, she’s not dead.”
                  “No? I could have sworn she passed years ago—sepsis or blood poisoning…wasn’t it?”
                  “Of course not. She plays at Billy Rose’s every other weekend in New York.  You know, the nostalgia club—two blocks down from the one pop owned in ’21.”
                  “Oh yes, that is right isn’t it. Well who , I wonder, was I thinking of?”
                  “Garbo?”
                  “Oh no.”
                  “Pola Negri?”
                  “Oh no, Felix , that isn’t it either .”
                  But Katie knew exactly who they were talking about. She was one of the two women who’d used the second-story bathroom. The one with the vanity and full-length mirror—the blue tiles and—             
    “Vilma Banky,” Katie’s words were soft, but clear. 
                  They turned strange eyes on her when she interrupted their clever debate. Katie cleared her throat and spoke again.
                  “It was Vilma Banky.”
                  Irene pursed her lips again and nodded.
                  “Yes, yes that’s it,” she said with no touch of doubt. She looked at Katie’s face again, this time with more warmth and less inspection. “You’re right. She does look very much like Esther Ralston. I don’t know how I missed it.” Irene crossed her arms and looked quizzically at her husband. “Now there’s a girl you’d never see dancing past her heyday at the Horseshoe. What is Esther doing these days?”
                  “Left the business for theology,” Mr. Kittredge said and yawned. “Yes, she looks very much like Esther Ralston, and has a nose just as tiny as an acorn—but she looks a little pale all the sudden.”
                  “Oh, why yes, she does ,” she held Katie’s face in her hand once again. “Are you feeling alright, dear?”
                  Katie nodded, suddenly thankful that she looked more like Esther Ralston than Mary Pickford or Vilma Banky.
                  “She’s fine, would rather stay home with her needlework is all,” Danny said. His mouth came close against her ear, his body slanting into her for one brief, taunting moment before he snapped upright.
                  “Is that so?” Irene asked.
                  “No.  I’m fine,” Katie said, shooing Danny away. 
                  “Well let’s be along then.” Felix shrugged and climbed into the