Argosy All-Story Weekly, November 13, 1920 — page 22: what you’re looking at

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

300 kiss he had intended for her lips. ‘Ill see about the Burgoynes,”’ she went on. “ We must live even with the prospects of glo- rious tropical orchids! And ”—she reached out and opened the check which she had folded and dropped on the desk before her —‘ perhaps I wil] have an apartment, Jer- ry! This nomad business—always wonder- ing whether you'll have an invitation to fill in at the end of the one you’re doing now— it’s slavery! And I want to be free! I’m going to be free! “T shall have luncheons—at the Ritz. And I shall order as prodigally as you— and I shall pay for it myself! And tip the waiter so magnificently that he’ll practise a new bow for me when I come in again!”’ Seeing the look in his eyes, feeling the tensing of his arms that were still half about her, she sprang up. “T think I hearc Betty come in! Let’s have cocktails—begging your pardon, Mr. Wilson! Tea—and cigarettes and—” She had eluded him and was already in the doorway. ; “But we haven’t finished—” he began. ‘““T think we have quite finished—being businesslike!’ she retorted and followed the bang of a piano and the sound of voices to- ward the drawing-room. | Cornelia Van Manse stopped playing when they entered. She shook her golden bobbed head at them and gaye a merry hello, one hand still picking a bit of syn- copation from the keys. Betty Lennon ex- tended a hand whose knuckles were sun- browned from her golf gloves. Her color was high, but beneath it countless tiny freckles and a certain coarsening of the skin betrayed the ravages of constant ex-. posure. Leroy Gamble, on the divan beside Jean Fathom, rose punctiliously and bowed over Norine’s hands. Leroy was frankly dilet- tante, The unhappy circumstance that had given him a Rugby body and a florid com- plexion tried him sorely. He longed for a pale, esthetic face, illumined by profound melancholy. Norine dropped upon a big gray velvet chair, one foot twisted under her, the other dangling childishly with a piquant display . of gold-stockinged ankle. ARGOSY -ALLSTORY WEEKLY, ‘“ Play going well, Leroy?” she asked, ac- cepting the glass Jerry tendered her, with a nod of thanks.” “ Ripping, thank you!” ‘ Top-hole mixture, Betty!” compli- mented Norine with a nod of her head to- ward the glass in her hand. Then to Le- roy: “That star of yours is quite fasci- nating. Id like to meet her.’”’ The last with a teasing sidewise glance at Jean. ‘‘ Norine is always wanting to meet queer creatures,’ Jean was answering the thrust with a quick little edge to her voice, a dis- turbed glint in her dark eyes. “Queer? Or interesting?’ inquired Cor- nelia, turning to face the company. Her eyes, which were small but of a bright, intense blue, met those of Jerry Brent, who had dropped to a low seat near Norine. ‘ Mainly interesting!” Norine answered the question. And she smiled slowly, tri- umphantly as she too glanced toward Jerry. “Cornelia would say that, of course,” said Jean. ‘‘ She’s a radical.’ ‘* She was,” said Sanford Graham, a pale young man whose chin had been neglected in the fashioning of him. ‘ But they raid- ed the last meeting she attended.” “It was perfectly thrilling!” shivered Cornelia; “but a frightful bully of a po- liceman told me he’d take me to the sta- tion if he ever saw me about such places again. Imagine! And they call this a democracy!” A chorus of laughter greeted her. Jean’s cool voice, still with its almost impercept- ible edge of sarcasm, rose above it. ‘“T met one of your—friends the other day, Norine!” she said. se Yes?”’ “He -was so mouveau riche that he seemed fairly — varnished! A Mr. Car- ruthers!” ‘““T have wondered,” said Norine, her eyes passing in detail over the people about her, ‘‘ if a little varnish might not improve us at times.” ‘Do you remember him?” persisted Jean, ignoring the remark, though the line of her sullen mouth became ominous. ‘““ Perfectly! He is—varnished. But then, I am moth-eaten. As a matter of fact ’’—she grinned suddenly about the Eomichoo () “S (EO) mn