Argosy All-Story Weekly, April 18, 1925 — page 24: what you’re looking at

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

174 “ You—well, gosh, aren’t women the lim- it!” William laughed blankly. “ It never occurred to me that you’d be disappcinted, Cynthia; I thought you’d be plumb tickled to death.” ia I am! » “But you’re disappointed, too.” “ Well—if you loved me as much as I love you, and you’d been expecting—” “Oh, you funny little kid!” cried Wil- liam, and caught her to him and held her fast. “ Fifteen thousand a year, instead of the three thousand we were hoping to get married on, and you— Well, I suppose girls are all like that. As if I didn’t love you as much as you love me, honey!” William purred. “ Darling, just think of it! If I get this, ’ll go out there for a month and make sure that it isn’t all a dream. And then I’ll make a lightning trip back here; and when that trip’s over, there’ll be a new Mrs. Brander in Cleveland, Ohio. Whoops!” William cried unrestrainedly. ““TIsn’t it wonderful?” “Ssh!” said Cynthia. Following this there was a blissful minute of utter silence, wherein presumably soul met soul. Then William returned to earth, and discovered that conscience was prod- ding, however slightly. “Vou poor little kid!” he breathed. ‘Now you'll have to sit here alone all eve- ning with Nora.” ve Yes.”’ “ Tf I hadn’t sent back the tickets when I found we couldn’t* go, you and Nora could have used them. That was a kind of thick-headed thing to do, come to think of it.” “T wouldn’t have gone without you, Billy.” “Yes, but, confound it, I hate to think of you just sitting here with your hands folded!” ‘Well, that’s where I shall be, Billy,” Cynthia said, with pretty resignation. “ Wouldn’t you like to—” “ T wouldn’t like to do anything without you. I'll just wait and—and maybe you'll telephone and tell me how it all came out?” “ T’ll do better than that. I'll skip back - here the second I leave Morton’s, dear. And we can go around the corner to the pictures ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. and see what’s left of the second show; and I can tell you all about it then.” “Fine!” said Cynthia brightly. ‘* And all the time I’m there, dearest, I'll be thinking of you sitting here and waiting for news that I’ve won,” said Mr. Brander, as he prepared to depart. ‘“ And if I can’t win out when I’m thinking of you, I’m not much good.” “Oh, Billy, whatever you do and wherever you are, you’re the best and dearest and sweetest thing in the world!” responded Cynthia, who was quite an en- thusiast on the subject of William; but for the rain of kisses that came upon her, she might have said even more than this. “And I'll never disappoint you again, honey, not even for a fifty-thousand-dollar job,” William stated in conclusion. Thus they passed to the door. Within thirty seconds the elevator had taken Wil- liam away from there. Cynthia moved slowly back to the center of the paint- perfumed living room. She was overjoyed at the great stroke of luck that was hover- ing just over her Billy—just over both of them, if it came to that. If Billy had rushed in here and told her that he was actually in possession of a fifteen-thousand- dollar job, no other thought could have en- tered her exquisite little cranium; so much Cynthia understood clearly. But, as a re- sult of much personal observation, she knew how many thousand varieties of as- sorted slips the wicked old world keeps in stock, all ready to thrust between cup and lip. And, however blooming she might ap- pear, she was really, literally weak and— “Well! Well! Haven’t you two gone yet?” Nora demanded briskly,. emerging irom the kitchenette and dusting cracker crumbs from her blouse. “ Aren’t you— huh? Where’s Billy?” “ He just left,” sighed Cynthia. ““You—you haven’t quarreled?” ‘‘ Don’t be silly. He was called away on business.” “ Well, isn’t he—er—going to take you out at all, young one?” Nora asked, with more than a suggestion of horror in her voice as she flicked the last crumb away hastily and, for some reason, avoided her cousin’s eye. EOPMIC OOO KS (E@)