Argosy All-Story Weekly, January 21, 1922 — page 117: what you’re looking at

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

DOUBLES AND QUITS. out of him,” Dorcas confided in a quavet= ing whisper to Mrs. Dundas. Aunt Anna had at first received Loraine with open arms, but the latter, repulsing her advances, she had altered her will again, cutting ““ Amy ” out of it once more. Elspeth, who knew of this, heaved a sigh of relief. Elspeth, for most excellent if somewhat complicated reasons, did not want that fortune to go to Mrs. Peter Tremlett. Yes, Elspeth was puzzled and very, very suspicious. “Tf only,” she muttered to herself, “I could get a good squint at the middle of her back, then I’d know.” Sut on ordinary occasions Mrs, Peter Tremlett’s back was not on view, and so Elspeth had no means of finding out whether or not the identifying brown mole, “like a thrippenny bit,” was still where it should be. Elspeth had bathed Amy as a child, and she knew exactly where that little brown patch had imprinted itself. Mrs. Dundas was one of those invited to the festive dinner-party, and she made mo objections when Elspeth asked to be allowed to accompany her. Naturally she wished to look her best, for her supposed niece was setting a pace which Witcham had some difficulty in following, and El- speth could be depended upon to put her mistress’s “ false front”? right at the last moment, and see that nothing was amiss with the rest of her toilette. Besides, Mrs. Dundas had heard it rumored that in Lon- don ladies of fashion often went to parties attended by their maids. She thought it rather clever of Elspeth to think of offering to accompany her. Elspeth’s motive, however, had not been to impress the ladies of Witcham with her mistress’s fashionable ways. She had heard, through the back-stairs medium, that Mrs. Peter Tremlett was going to wear a really shocking dress. ‘“* Comes right down to her waist at the back,” said Elspeth’s informant. . “ And what there is of it is only spangles.” Could anything have been less like Amy! Peter came into his wife’s room about ten minutes before it was necessary for them to go down to receive their guests. He had 107 “made his success in spite of her—in spite even of the fact that people had been shocked by their sudden marriage. He stood in the doorway for a moment, glowering at her. She sat before her dressing-table adding certain finishing touches. Her face was dead white, her lips scarlet. The short mass of fluffy hair had been frizzed and then combed out with startling effect. The dress, rumors of which had reached Elspeth, was a French confection of black sequins, and Peter would find that it had cost him something like eighty pounds. It fitted her slim body as a sheath and was sleeveless. He was compelled against his will to ad- ‘mire her beauty, but it was the sort of beauty which looks more naturally placed behind the footlights. A cigaret burned on the edge of the dressing-table and close at hand stood an empty glass. The woman’s eyes were bril- liant as she turned to him. ‘** I’m just ready,” she said. He had meant to tell her that she must put a shawl over her bare shoulders and take some of the red off her lips, but in such matters Loraine was armored with conscious rectitude. If Witcham objected to the way she got herself up, it was simply because Witcham did not know anything, and jolly well time it was taught. Already some of the younger matrons were learning. Under her frank smile the intended scold- ing died on his lips. He went further than Dorcas; his own private description of his wife likened her to a vampire. Not only was she eating her way steadily into his money, but she was draining the very life of him by her mysteriousness. There were days when she was sunk in white-faced apathy and scarcely seemed to hear if spoken to; days when she retired to her room exhausted by illness which Dr. Leach could not define; at other times she was so gay that the sound of her laughter jarred every nerve in Peter’s body. “Don’t I look nice?” she demanded, springing to her feet. ‘Isn’t this frock a dream?” Peter shrugged his shoulders, and she struck him playfully with her fan. “You old silly! Wake up. Say some- comiclboooks C©