The Argosy, March 27, 1920 — page 20: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

170 low wouldn’t think much of being taken up by Araminta and dropped; as she always dropped every one in the end; but David wouldn’t understand it. He stepped brisk- ly forward. * As for Willard—” he said again. Araminta appeared to bring herself back to the remembrance of his presence with an effort. David was holding her hand as she said good-by, ‘And you will come and see me?” she was saying, ‘ Tony will tell you where I live; in my uncle’s old house on Sixty-Fifth Street.” Then she replied to Tony’s remark, “ Willard?” she laughed. ‘‘ He’d slipped from my mind. Il be absolutely con- scienceless and forget that he was to dine with me, I'll make Anita call him when I get home and tell him I have a headache or something, and can’t see him. Then you boys come to dinner instead, won't you, please?” She stood back, holding her big muff be- fore her face, her two ‘beseeching, lovely eyes brimful of mischief. If she had been beautiful before, she was radiant now. All the artist in Antony Fane recognized it. Mentally he groaned. What man could resist such allure? He knew Araminta through and through, for instance, but he could not, He glanced at David expectantly, his ready grin already in evidence. A mere formal acknowledgment from himself svould be all that was necessary; David, if he knew the symptoms, would jump at the chance of seeing Araminta again that day, and in the intimacy of a family dinner in her own home. But David hesitated. ‘“ Thank you,” he said; “ you are more than kind; but I’m afraid I can't. You see, my little sister, she has been separated from me so long: I can’t leave her, very well; we only re- turned to New York yesterday.” “ How stupid of. me,” said Araminta; “of course I remember Robinetta. She was a toddling baby when I was about— well, let’s leave the matter of age out of it, Wouldn’t she come without a formal call from me first, if I wrote her a note? Or— I might call on her this afternoon.” David laughed. ‘ Robin’s the most un- THE ARGOSY. ceremonions creature in the world,” he said. “If I may bring her with me I know she’ll be charmed. She’s the most astonishing memory, too; she'll probably ‘know exactly what you looked like as Minta Crane, and unless I warn her she will be sure to blurt out that little matter of age.” *“ Gracious!” said Araminta, stepping away in pretended alarm. ‘* Even if she does, sweetness, you should worry!” Tony said slangily,*and as he walked with her down the narrow pathway to the waiting car, his laugh came back to David merrily. “ Holy smoke, Araminta, I'd give some- thing to see Willard’s face when Anita phones him. He knows you never have a headache. Aren’t you afraid of losing an adorer?”’ She shook her head, laughing. “ Even for stupid Araminta Letherby there are plenty more,” she said, and her eyes turned, as if against her will, back” to the window where David Cortland stood. CHAPTER IV, op aan “PRIVE to the Primalto Hotel,’ Ara- minta told the chauffeur as the car turned out of Washington Square. For a moment she watched the man manipulating his way through the traffic, then, with a half-smile, that somehow altered the ex- pression of her face, adding a subtlety to its beauty that had not been there when she talked with Tony and Cortland, she took the paper from her loose-sleeved cape, and opening it, proceeded to read again, calmly, the letter that had been the cause of her visit to Tony’s studio—the letter from the Scarlet Rider. Long before the Primalto was reached she had folded it again and placed it in her hand-bag, and when she swept across the curb and into the palm-shaded lobby of the hotel, famous for its exclusive patronage and the suavity of its service, all hint of frowning thought had gone from her ex- pression, and she was again only the beau- tiful Araminta Letherby New York had labeled stupid. comicbooksscom