Marjorie Morningstar Read Online Free

she deserves.”
    There was a long silence. He finished his coffee, picked up the newspaper and walked
     into the living room.

Chapter 2.
PRINCE CHARMING
    “Here you are, miss.” The taxi stopped in front of the Chevy Chase Riding Academy,
     a converted garage with a huge tin horse painted a dirty brown hanging over the entrance.
     A cloud of horse smell came rolling into the cab. She could hear the beasts stamping.
     The cab driver, glancing around, took in the stiff new riding habit and the uncertain
     look. He grinned, baring yellow horselike teeth. “Go ahead, kid. You’ll live.” Marjorie
     gave him a haughty look, and tipped him a quarter to prove that she was an aristocrat
     who loved horses. Handkerchief to nose, she went up the manure-littered ramp, stepping
     daintily with her toes pointed inward to avoid the unhappy duck-waddling effect which
     she had noticed in other girls wearing riding clothes.
    Rosalind Green, a stocky sallow girl, came waddling to meet her from the gloomy stalls,
     in a new riding habit of a hideous olive color. “Hello, we were about to give you
     up. They’re getting the horses ready.”
    “Sorry I’m late.” Marjorie followed Rosalind through rows of stalls where horses were
     snorting, stamping, jingling, and neighing.
    The two girls had become acquainted in the El Dorado elevator. Rosalind, a year and
     a half older, was a consistent A student, but she lacked humor and was dull at dances
     and parties. Ordinarily she might have hated Marjorie for her small waist, slender
     ankles, and quicksilver chatter. But she was so sure of her own superiority that she
     could forgive her. Rosalind had been born on Central Park West; she was a junior at
     Barnard; and she was engaged to one Phil Boehm, the son of a famous heart specialist.
     She had nothing to fear from the clever, pretty little climber from the Bronx, a mere
     sophomore at the free public college, Hunter. Rosalind frankly patronized Marjorie.
     Marjorie put up with it because of Rosalind’s usefulness in introducing her to the
     Columbia fraternity set. They spent hundreds of hours talking about clothes, hair,
     paint, movies, and boys. Marjorie had lost touch with her girl friends in the Bronx,
     and had found no real chums at Hunter. Rosalind at the moment was her best friend.
    “Here she is, Jeff,” Rosalind called.
    At the far end of the stable five horses—very big, eager, and gay—were prancing and
     pawing under a naked electric bulb. Jeff, a sunburned little groom in shabby breeches
     and wrinkled boots, stood among the animals, tightening girths and shouting orders
     at Billy and Sandy, who were saddling their horses. He glanced sourly at Marjorie.
     “How well can you ride, miss?”
    “Not well at all,” Marjorie said promptly.
    A humane light flickered in the groom’s eye. “Well, good for you. Most of them won’t
     admit it, and then—Whoa, you stupid bastard.” He punched the dancing horse in the
     ribs.
    Phil Boehm said, “That’s my horse. Don’t get him mad.” He sat slumped on a dirty bench
     beside Sandy’s girl, Vera Cashman, a handsome blond sophomore from Cornell, who looked
     sleepy and cross.
    “Give her Black Beauty, Jeff,” said Sandy, with a smile and a wink at Marjorie. He
     was deft and quick with his horse’s trappings. His breeches were faded, and his boots
     looked not much better than the groom’s. The riding costumes of the rest of the party
     were almost as new as Marjorie’s.
    “Give me the gentlest horse you’ve got,” Marjorie said, “and give him a sleeping pill
     before we start.”
    Sandy laughed.
    Billy Ehrmann, red-faced and perspiring, was heaving at a strap under his horse’s
     belly. At this moment, with a fierce yank, he managed to undo everything, and fell
     on the floor under the horse, with the saddle and stirrups in a jingling pile on top
     of him. The groom, looking extremely disgusted, picked up the saddle and pulled Billy
     to his feet. “I