Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 52: what you’re looking at

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

678 George frantically seized her hand. Per- spiration bedewed his face. This was a depth below which he hoped never to plunge. His voice sank to a whisper. “IT may ‘as well tell you the truth,” he confided. ‘ Look!” He produced the sad, lonely fifty-centime piece. : “This is all the money I have in the world! True, I have an apartment—one of the best hereabout, I guess. I even have a lot of fancy wines and cigars, and a Jap- anese servant, for a week at least. But no money. You see, my father read in the American papers about the parties that were being given by George Strong, and so he cabled that he had cut off my allow- ance. Of course, I cabled back—used up all my money doing so—and have written; but so far, not a sou!” Then the little woman did indeed laugh. Never before had George realized the genu- ine eloquence, the soul, the nuances, that can be conveyed by laughter. It was not boisterous, of course; it did not attract the attention of a single diner present, nor scarcely that of the hovering waiter. But it plunged George into a fiery furnace of self-consciousness and ignominy. She ob- served his woebegone look at last, and cut her mirth as short as if she had used mani- cure scissors. “Do forgive stupid me!” she begged. “ But it is so fun-nee! And all because of that naughty, naughty De Vaudreuil! While poor M. Georges, on his part, com- promises the count with my innocent mar- ket cart, my babyless perambulator!”’ - In a second she was the capable woman of affairs. She waved aside all George’s objections, rode over his protests with a fusillade of “ oo0-la-la’s.’ And in a twin- kling, in a rapid patois which George could not follow, had sent the waiter off with the orders for dinner. Looking suddenly up, George was as- tounded to see upon her face a look of de- spair which made its smooth contours seem almost haggard. It seemed to him that sheer terror flamed far back in those splen- did eyes. She smiled, and he wondered if he had been mistaken. ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. “Please tell me more, mon ami,’ she coaxed. ‘ All about why you come to our Paris, and what you do with those gr-r-reat shoulders of yours, and everysing!” Once more George, so willing to tell the story of his mishaps, plunged into the re- cital of his disastrous induction into the ranks of professional pugilism, the subse- quent interview with his father, and his flight to a land where so small a sum as fifty a month will procure nourishment enough to keep both body and mind func- tioning. He had told it so often, that by now Othello could hardly have bettered the epic. And, hanging intently upon every word, her little, high bred face leaning sympathetically across the table, her slim shoulders, eyebrows, hands, lips, even her tapping feet making eloquent comment from time to time, Mme. Volontiers lis- tened as no Yankee girl has ever yet learned how to do. To George, conscious of the flattery and sympathy of her attention, it seemed as if she gestured with every part of her body excepting her ears! VI. THE potage arrived while George was yet in the midst of his story of that fatal night when his professional début had taken place in the ring. Upon a rich and odorous sea rode a little fleet of croustades, dipped in butter and anchovy paste, and delicately browned. George never appreciated the ar- tistry of the little dinner. He partook of each course with the unabashed hunger of a healthy male, watched by the dancing and: appreciative eyes of his hostess. There was a sole, with a wondrous sauce in which little oyster crabs slept in spiced white Wine. There was chicken so tender that it appeared that it must have been raised on whipped cream. A cheap but sound wine was served; and Mme. Volontiers herself “ fatigued ” the salad of crisp lettuce and endive. To do him justice, wrapped up though he was in the boyish zest of his life story, he did take note of the charm of her table manners, the unobtrusive gentleness of her Gomichooks.com)