Argosy All-Story Weekly, Vol. 123, No. 3 — page 152: what you’re looking at

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

A34 what it was he meant. He managed to say finally with as much charity as he could summon: “ Well, Eddy, I always knew you were a nut. Just a plain nut. Hard shelled. A nut.” “ All right; I am a nut. But I know enough to know I could never be happy married to that woman—and I'll never be happy without her—and if you think it’s - any fun being that kind of a nut, you’ve got a let to learn about nuts. I wish I had died back in 1776!” | IV. - Tue home of Miss Sally Ames was a flat cleverly remodeled from part of an old- time brownstone house to the east of Fifth Avenue in the Seventies. ere was not -much of it beside the living-room, but that . had such an air of gracious hospitality, good taste and a catholic interest in the fine arts that it spoke eloquently of the charms. of the girl who owned it. . The room was large and, this evening, lighted with shaded lamps that gave it a charming richness. The furniture was of no special period but all of it comfortable. The rugs were rather well worn, but they were goed rugs. There was a beautiful old grand piano and cases of books old and new. On the walls hung several very good paintings, the work of living artists not par- ‘ticularly famous to-day, though some day they may become “old masters.” There was a glowing fire of cannel coal on the. plain old hearth that added vastly to the cheerfulness. | Altogether, it was a room that seemed to have been used much and much enjoyed, haunted by the ghosts of many an evening as delightful as this—a legion of sane, pleasant, well-mannered, clever ghosts, the sort of ghosts one would care to know. Obviously Miss Sally Ames was not a particularly rich young woman, nor exactly impoverished. Bowman understood that she followed the profession of literature to earn a living, though he‘did not know ex- actly what she wrote. Miss Ames leaned forward so that the glow of a piano lamp threw a mystery around her clever and beautiful fac-. and ARGOSY- ALLSTORY WEEKLY. . ‘notion of it! rd made a little halo out of her closely bound hair. words of Walter Bowman. Bowman was rolling a page of sheet- music between his fingers as he spoke. “ It is an interesting idea when you get the I don’t know, it sort of fasci- nates me, y’ know. When you trace out the melody 1 hine of a song with a pencil and compare it with the old Greek lines of beauty and grace, or the Japanese stiff, the resemblance kind of startles you. Then finding the same thing in poetry, you noticed? ‘There’s a sort of principle be- hind it, something that makes you think of rhythm—and infinite space—and_ the planets and things all geing around in-ap- pointed paths—I don’t know, it’s kind of funny, don’t you think?” Bowman stopped and sighed a sigh that seemed to come all the way from six feet one inch beneath the crown of his head. There was no satisfaction in that sigh. carried a little tremolo of fear and guilty conscience, and yet Eddy Denby’s topic She was evidently hanging on the - It- had won him the lady’s attention for a good hour and a half. — of a great success. “It is kind of funny,” he repeated lamely. “I think that idea is simply. wonderful.”’ Sally Ames said it slowly, her air enrap- tured. “It’s big—a great big corking no- tion! Why, Walter Bewman, that’s bully stuff.. You’ve no idea how much I admire a business man like you who can find time to think out big things like that—things about the finer things in life!” Bowman squirmed uneasily. His usually rather placid face showed signs of wrink- ling, like the face of an unhappy small boy. He tried to stop her with a wave of the hand. But Sally Ames insisted on talking. “I want to tell you that I de admire you—-I admire your bread mind, your catholic tastes in the fine arts; your undoubtedly brilliant critical ability —” “Oh, please! I feel like.a fool—” « But you know so much! I can’t help but pay a little tribute. You know so many things—’’ Bowman groaned. It had every ear-mark “Stop!” he said. bd CoE 1 - UNG orn (C = SS CO