Evening Star Newspaper, November 4, 1923, Page 78

i "\ The '»yAml:sgrtraT i Engayanm - ;]c.i‘aa]a 2 Were Important: in’ One Ghapter. 3 \.;of Lv'fc.’for ’NeflyfiLaujaf_jJ_,js,u}_a, ELLY-LOU ' JOHNSTON - was N.- he nicest-girl: in Gainesville and Larry Proudfit’ was.the nicest . man and .they' were _ 4y nearly engaged to be married.. ""And"_so things' stood - when Sara | Stanton came to town. " Barh was twenty-five to Nelly-Lou's twenty-three—and much like .a somewhat overpowering but * lovely gurdenia aa-Neliy-Lou was ltke a wild “Ihe ‘people whom Sara,came to tively. new, and rolling in wealth. Wythe was the name. . Julla, the daughter, had gone to school with Sars, somewhere in the east, and Jimmy Wythe, the son, was an un- successtul rival of Larry for Nelly- Lou's in Gainesville the Wythes gave a dance_at the country club jn Sara’s henor. At the dance most 6f the county ‘Was present. 3 “Who's the man with the girl, in blue tulle?” Sara inquired of Julia ‘Wythe after Larry gnd Nelly-Lou had passed along the receiving line. ' “That? Oh, that's Larry Proudfit— nicest man in town; going to marry the girl he's with—Nelly-Lou Johns- ton—daughter of old-Judge Johnston, .” “Is he?"" inquired Sara -innocently. “Do, you know, I.rather .ltke hig looka” - . “Watch your step,” whispered Julia. *“Nelly-Lou has hiin tied and labeled”’ _That :first dance- set the 'seal of Gainesyille's emphastic approval upon Sara’ ~When - “Home,” Sweet 'Home'" was played, at three in the morning, she ‘had engagements for a week ahead in:the matter of dinners.and motor.rides and .dances. - And “just here it may be stated that one of the nces”was Larry's. ‘Which marked an epoch in" Larry's life. ‘He had taken no one but Nelly- Lou to dances since he was twenty and she seventeen. He -dldn’t quite-know how he came to ask Sara, but Sara.could-have told him.. He had taken -her ouf upon one of the.clubhouse 'verandas after & .dance for a breath .of. alr and.a clgarette—and the conversation had turned, naturally enough, upon danc- ing. J 2 Sara had looked up at him from under heavy lashes and saids “It fen't dancing—with you—it's ifke flylng. It's perfect. = Just. the music and the lights—and—and drift- ing through the air. You know, I almost forgot you were there. I felt like a butterfly myselt—=" “You may feel s much like a but- terfly as you want,” said Larry coolly; “but you ‘don’t want to forget that ¥m here.” “I remembered, before we murmured Sara with a soft laugh. 5 . “Poor little. fingers!".’said Larry boldly. . “Did I hurt 'em?” He picked up Sara’s hand and_Kissed it ‘with a delighttul air of gallantry. Now one of those things which a girl from the north is always. slow of learning is this: That when a man from the south kisses the hand of a pretty woman, . he means by it—approxi- mately nothing. * ok kK IARA heaved a prettily careless sigh and asked 0 you dance a great deal?” . = *“Probabl. said Larry. - ‘“There are one or two d: week, I know—Julia sald s “I suppose,” sald Larry lazily, “I suppose .you're engaged weeks ahead for:all these parties?” . $ “Oh, not week: sighed Sara. “Pléase. don’t laugh at me!” “Lord, , child—I'm not *laughing!"” sald Larry, amused. “For Instance,” pursued Sara, with a touch of wistfulness, “there’s. the Merriwell party next Tuesday.night— their dinner-dance, you know—" “Aren’t you engaged for that?” “Oh, I dare say I shall be. Sqme one will ask me." - *“If some one does, will you tell him you're going with me?" Larry suggest- ed pleasantly. ) Bara lifted wide, and smiled at him. “I'm so ‘glad you asked. me,” she sald happily. “Do you know, I shall be looking forward to that party all stopped,” little y shall while you're here,” dark -eyes USERS wvor. Upon Sara's second night' ! week. You'll have to dance with me | Johnstons. very often—it: I.go with you—won't It. was playing.: the game.rather mere frankly.than Galnesville girls were ac- customed; {but Larry found some- thing ing iin_the absence of con- ventional raticences. - L “If you' leave iit to me,” he assured her smilingly, “T]l be the only man in town that night" \ Sdra rose, the music_ was.beginning again, and ‘sHd - hér - siéhder - white fingers into his. . " 3 ‘You don't think:I'm queer and hor- rid, do you?' she'said pleadingly. . *T can never learn’to hide what’l’feel— like " other: girls.” ot " “I think ~ you're wonderful,” sald Larry. + “It's 6dd to find & worhan who isn't’ afrald to. eay 'what she's :think- ing. I rather-like it myselt.” * He told Nelly-Lou on the: way home that he thought .Miss ‘Stanton was an unusually attractive girl. “I" think ‘you'd"like heér, Nelly-Lou,” sald Larry. [ Nelly-Lou ‘merely curled' down closer in the low seat of Larry's roadster and sald nothing at all. Y “I'm going to. take ‘her to the Mer- riwells’ - dinzie ¢ on Tuesday,” Larry continuéd. . .He . almost felt { Nelly-Lou wince ‘away, from him. “How are; you‘golng," Nelly-Lou?" he blunderéd on. ... “Why. coulan't -we all 80 together?” . . H _ "Jimmy Wythe asked me _tonight,” 8ald Nelly-Low in a'smail; clear volce. “Thanks, Larry—I'm lunching ' at the club: that:day- and"-getting: home late. T'd rather ot feel that' Jimmy. and. I might keep you'all waiting.” =~ ~ She drew. a’long bresth snd. added: ‘*‘Apparently that's going to be a very nice party. Mijss Stanton dances well, dosen’t shd7” © o 3 “Not any’ better than you do,” sald Larry bluntly, turning’into the' John- ston’s 'long, dimly. shihing driveway. “Now, . Larry!” “sald Nelly-Lou with a little" Jaugh. ‘Lairy. didn’t, ‘want,to be asked for an explanation, but Hé wanted, insist- ently, to’ offer one. Nelly-Lou ‘didn't give him a chance. She said good night at the big white door - of - her fafher's house. “I've had a’ wonderful time, Larry,” sald .Nelly-Lou. * ““Thank you so much.” When he lingéred. ureasily, she added with gentle ~significarice: “It's really awtully late—"""_ And Larry went home. * ok ok FPHAT was the heginning of very definite unhappiness for Nelly- Lou and of a kind of intangible pur- gatory for’ Larry. He went to the, Merriwell party with Sara and Nelly-Lou went with Jimmy Wythe, . She carried her head high, smiled all evening: on Jimmiy, dénced once or twice with Larry—and went home at last to cry. herseif to sleep. So far as Galnesville was coricerned, Nelly-Lou, bécame, , dyring Miss ‘Stan- ton’s visit, delightfully gay. She went to one' tea: after another, sat at one after another of the pretty luncheons which everybody was by way of giving \for_Julia’s lovely..guest, and wore an amazing number of riew’ gowns in which she lookéd more than: ordinarily sweet. When people : commented on Sara Stanton's _triumphs, ly-Lou ' smiled sweetly. and murmured “Yes, she certainly is ‘an attractive girl™ More could not. have been expected of any woman. : As for Larry, he still called upon her, took her driving, telephoned ‘her of a morning, danced with her at parties. They talked endlessly, but said nothing. Their smiles went no deeper than each other’s eyelashes. So thingsjust drifted with the cur- rent_until the day..of Mrs. Proudfit's luncheon. ' It was odd, in the first' place, Mrs. Proudfi’s” éntertaining * fof Sara Stan- ton.- There were those: who' almost ex- pected ‘an announcemert. _But Nelly- Lou still kept a_vestige of trust in Larry's sincerity. it was that . that helped her. Into, her prettiest frock, pinned valley lilies at her sash and sent her-fortir that day inthe “shade of a drooping bjue-plumed hat that would have made Du Barry 'herself look like & Greuze.. ' . ' ot But not the frock, not the hat, not even the valley-lilies held Nelly-Lou erect ad a Iittle soldier when she saw her place card next to Sara Stanton’s. That was the fighting ‘spirit of the All around:.the dainty SARA LOOKED UP AT HIM FROM UNDER HEAVY LASHES AND SAID: “IT ISN'T DANCING—WITH YOU—IT'S LIKE FLYING.” table with its spotless old. damask, its heavy repousse candlesticks, its eggshell china, its Venetian glass and the beautiful Proudfit ‘silvet. which would some day belong to Larry's wife, an undercurrent of exgitement ran, like a charged wire. Nelly-Lou sat down and unfolded her - napkin, smiling a Httle, and looked straight into Miss Stanton's dreamy gaze. “I adore peonies, don’t you?' said | Nelly-Lou. ‘There was an old silver | bowl of-them in the center of the table. Sara. Stanton sald she did and smiled back at Nelly-Lou. She wore flesh color that day and a large black hat. There was an enthralling in- solence .about ,her, heavy-lidded eyes. She engaged Nelly-Lou in ardently eager conversation. They discussed subjects: having mutual interest and subjects:having- none. Sara'meglected the woman upon her | other side. Nelly-Lou perforce neg- lected.the woman upon hers. ww¢ UNDER THE BARBER’S KNIFE ses Stephen Leacock on tiue Man \Vho Admits Sllaving’ I‘Iimself AS you to the fight the | € other ‘night?” said the barber, leaning over me and speaking in his confidential whisper. “Yes,” I said, “I was there.” He saw from this that I could still speak. So he laid another thick wet towel over my face before he spoke again. s “What ~did “you think of 1t?” asked. But.he had miscalculated. T couM still make & faint sound through the wet towels.” - He- laid three or four more very thick ones over my faee and stood with- his five finger tips pressed against my face for support. A thick - steain rose about me. Through it 1:0ould hear the barber’s volce and the flick-flack of the razo as he stropped it. : “Yes,, sir,” he went on'in his.quiét professional tome, punctuated ‘ With the .noise. of the razor,, “T knowed fromn the:start Battlin' Bugs was sure to win,"—flick-flack, filck-flack—“as soon as I seen ‘him that'night' and seen to getaway he- made I knowed 1t"=fick-fack—"and just'ak soon as hé got the jump’— 4 This was more than:the barber at the next chalr could. stand. “Him get de jump,” he cried, giv-, ing an angry dash with/a full brush of soap -into the face .of the man he N { W\, It .was about the salad course that the two came down to.the only topic that they really had in common— which was Larry, of course. “Charming person, isn't he? But difficult, rather. Don't you think so?” suggested Sara. Nelly-Lou had never found Larry difficult. She murmured something now to that effect, something casual and disinterested. “If he would only be friends with one—just friends!” sighed Sara. YBut I'm afrald he's that doesn’t understand friendship— with a:woman. He's got. to be emo- tlonal or nothing. Don’'t you find him like that? : “Larry and I have been friends ever | since we were children, Lou with lovely dignity. “Then, of course, .he isn't—unman- ageable—with you?" No,” sald Nelly-Lou. “I have a feeling that he's clever; you know.” said Sara, with a little gesture of profounid Tregret; ‘“that he sald Nelly- LL the barbers were excited now. There was & babel of talk from behind each of the. eight chairs. “He can’t slug;” “He can slug;” ‘Tl bet you ten.” Already they weré losing their tem- pers, slapping their customers with wet towels and jabbing great brush- fuls of soap into their mouths. My barber was leaning over my face with his whole body. In .another min- ute one or the other iof them would have ‘been sufficiently provoked “to have dealt his customer a’blow be- hind the ear.. 3 .Then suddenly thére was a hush. “The. boss,” said ‘one. In another minute I could realise,’ = g [ALIHY the sort of man, i (v [ / ! could be. deliclously amusing if he ‘wanted to; even that he could be the most splendid pal——" she stopped to ledve a slow trail of caressing wist- fulness over the word—"but with me he won't be anything but absolutely stormy, my dear. You never heard such melodramatic nonsense as ‘he talks. I can't keep him on—well, on safe ground—no_ matter how hard I try. Why, last night—" “How amusing!” said Nelly-Lou, smiling with lips a little stifft. ¥What did he say last night?" “He was really too absurd” mourned Sara. “He told me—after hours' of the most outrageous ab- surdities on his part—that I had ice water in my veins instead of blood; Just because I didn't—well, If one can't respond to that sort of thing, one: can’t, that's all. I'm not cold— none of the Stantons are cold, but I never.pretend anything I don't feel. I simply will not pretend; sincerity is the biggest thing in the world, don't you think?” “Been out of town?" he questioned. “Yes,” I admitted. L “Who's been dofng'your work?" he asked. has no reference to one’s daily occu- pation. It means, “Who has beén shaving you?" I knew it was best to own up. -I'd been in the wrong, and I meant to asknowledge It with perfect frank- ness. “T've-been shaving myself,” I sald. My barber stood back from me In ‘contempt. There was a distinot sen- sation all down “the line of barbers. One of them threw a wet rag in a corner with a thud, and another sent a sudden 'squirt from atomizer though T couldn’t"see-it, that & ma-(into his customer’'s eye as & mark of jestic figure in a white coat - was moving down the line. - All was still ‘again except -the quiet-hum -of. the mechanical. shampoo - brush -and the soft burble of running water. The barber began removing the wet towels from my face one by one. He peeled thém Off with’the profea- sional neatness of _an 'Egyptologist unwrapping & mummy. When he reached my face he looked searching- 1y’at it. Thers was suspicton in his oye. under him—“him get ut-dat -stiff— [ why, bo; he said, and he turned appealingly to the eight barbers,-who all’ rested :their:elbows on’ the cus- tomers' ‘faces while they listened to the rising aitercation; even the manli- cure girl, thrilled to attention, clasped tight the lumpy ‘hand of her client in her white digits .and remained mo- tionless—'‘why boys, dat lucky = stiff can't ‘no more swing a' real wallop than— g “See _here,” sald the barber, sud- -|denly.and angrily, striking. his fist IN.A.COAXING DANCED: *OH, HOW'I WANT YOU, DEAR gt | him than .dat emphatically on - the :towels that covered my face. “T'll bet you five dollars to one Bat Bugs can slam.any “Him " slam,” squirtin > o the face of the client he was treat- ing,: “he ‘ain’t ‘got-no more-puneh. in rig”—and .he.slapped s wet towel across. his client's face. . sneered the other, disgust. My barber continued to look at me narrowly. & “What razor did you use?’ he said. “A safety razor," I answered. The barber had-begun to dash soap over my face; but he stopped— aghast. R A satety, razor to & barber is like a red rag to a bull. - - *“If it was me,” he went on, beat- ing lather into ‘me as he spoke, “I ‘wouldn’t let one of them things near THE CHAIR. ‘NEXTY", MBER 4. 1923_PART ° This question, from a barber, | 5 “ *The meanest of his creatures boasts twe One_to face the world with, oue to show.s | . womsn when be'loves her—' “I don't mean, of course—" said Sars, charmingly embarrassed. * x x % PIIZ!J:Y-IDU finished her: lunheon in & specles of numb and pain- ful bewilderment, though outwardly she made all the gestures, accomp- lished all the little well-bred noises of a young lady in the house of a friend. < After luncheon she played bridge by the aid of some subconscious in- telligence that carried on her e while she was inwardly elsewhere. “If Larry can talk like that, and feel like that,” Nelly-Lou told herself grimly, “about anybody, when he never talked like that and felt llke that about me—then he isn't in lové with me, that's all!” It ‘was not the most auspicious time Larry could have chosen to try to set things right between himself and Nelly-Lou. Nevertheless, that night Larry called, and about nine o'clock said abruptly and with a trace of shy- nes: 3 “Nell¥-Lou, what's the matter?” “Matter with what?” asked Nelly- Lou politely. They were sitting, at the time, on the wide shadowy veranda of the Johnston homestead. | . “Matter with yeu and me,” insisted Larry stubbornly. “Have I done any- thing to offend you, Nelly-Lou?" “Mercy, no!” sald Nelly-Lou. “Why should you think that?” “Because—we used to be pretty good friends, didn't we?” “Of course we were friends—aren't we still?” chestra began to make ftself heard. “Are the others late?” asked Nelly- Lou, a little nervously. “Here comes Miss Stanton now.” sali And- he and Nelly-Lou went to- gether to meet Miss Stanton, Miss Stanton greeted Nelly-Lou with extreme graclousness, Larry with pos- sessive Informality. The three followed a. waiter to a table in a far corner of the room and sat down. “Well, Larry,” sald Sara sweetly, “why did you ask us s0 early? Half- past four—that’s almost indecent!” “Sorry,” sald Larry. “Who's coming?” persisted the lan- quid inquisitor. “Oh, just a few—the usual crowd.” “T think he's very tiresome. Don't you, Miss Johnson?" sald Sara, lean- ing over to pat Larry's sleeve with a provocative forefinger. Nelly-Lou achieved a smile. She was watching, Larry's face. 4 “Don’t ask Nelly-Lou what she thinks of me,” Larry was saying coolly. “And personally, 'm just as glad the rest of the party is late. I've got & crow to pick with you, younz 1ad; = ““With me?" drawled Sara caressingly “Why, Larry! “With you,” said Larry pleasantly. “What do you mean by telling Nelly Lou all sorts of romantic nonsense and pinning it on to me?” Nelly-Lon swallowed a gasp. Miss Stanton looked deeply injured. “Larry, are you out of your head?" “I am not” sald larry. “But 1 want to tell you, Sara, you're Ikely to get me into serlous trouble in my “I'm darned if I know.” “If you don’t, who does?" “I thought you might, Nelly-Lou.” " “Why should I know any more than you?” “Well, it's more or less up to the girl, fsn't 1?2 “I aidn’t know there was any dif- ferene in our—friendship,” said Nelly~ Lou most untruthtully. “It's shot to pleces,” sald Larry bitterly. * “And I thougth—I was fool enough to ho) » “Were you?' inquired Nelly-Lou in a ocuridusly stiffled voice. “Well, everybody makes at least one mistake, Larry. She was all at once swept with a trembling passion of anger, with the desire to see him suffer as she had suffered that afternoon before the revelation of his two soul-sides. “Nelly-Lou,” she wailed to her secret self, “be a lady!” But the adjuration was useless, lost before the storm. “How can you be so cold?” asked Larry reproachfully. “Perhaps I have ice-water in my veins, instead of blood,” suggested Nelly-Lou, and laughed—an unpleas- Nelly-Lou nodded and smiled. ' That at the moment was her uttermost “He said—" Sara hesitated mod- estly, with down-dropped lashes and lowered volce. 5 “Yes?” said Nelly-Lou. “He sald T might make a fool of him—but if I did—by gad, I'd pay the price. Can you jmagine—" N “No, I can't,” sald Nelly-Lou. “Isn’t it too absurd?” “Too absurd,” kald Nelly-Lou. “Can you explain a man like that to me?” inquired Sara, with large, sweet, yearning eyes fixed on Nelly- Lou's smooth cheek. ‘“You've known him all your life; why is it that he's one man to you, for instance, and another to me? Of course, there's that thing of Browning’s—you know what I mean.” - “I-don’t belleve I do,” said Nelly- Lou. Sara quoted in a soft, sorrowful undertage: my face. No, sir. There ain’t no safety in them. They tear the hide clean off you—just rake the hair right out by the follicle As he said this he was illustrating his meaning with jabs of his razor. “Them things just cut a man’s-face all to pieces,”” He jabbed a stick of alum against an open cut that he had made. “And as for clean- liness, for sanitation, for this here hyglene and for germs, I wouldn't have them around me for a fortune.” I said nothing. I knew I had de- served it, and I kept quiet. * k kX TEE barber gradualy subsided. Under other circumstances he would have told me something of the plans for spring training of the base ant little laugh. *““What are you-talking about?”’ “Don’t you know?" “I certainly don't.” “Want me to tell you, Larry?” “I wish you would.” So she told him—and she told it ‘well. Sara’s languid drawl] reproduced itself with amazing realism. “And ob, Larry,” finished Nelly-Lou, mockingly pathetic, “you can't think how hurt I was, to know that you could be so— thrilling,—and that you had never done it for me. Didn't you like me enough, Larry—or—what?” Larry sat quiet, extraordinary quiet, knitting his fingers together and star- ing down at them. . “You aren’t going to say you never sald 1t?* Nelly-Lou implored him. “I was so excited, by the time she'd finished, to think I'd known you all these years and had never seen that side of you, but I suppose a man has his different sides, hasn't he? And, of ‘tourse, he ish’t apt to be poetic—and just' a bit melodramatic, over a girl he's grown up with—is he? There's such a staleness about knowing peo- ple all your life. Sometimes I feel myself as if I'd give anything in the world for just one new man'in town.’ An earthquake could not have rocked that corner of the. Johnston veranda more sickeningly. “She sald I sald it—didn't she?” asked Larry. “Haven't I told you?" “You belleved her, of course,” said Larry. “It was like me as you knew me?” Incredibly quiet and cool he sounded. “It was mot at all like you as I knew you,” sald Nelly-Lou, regret- fully. “That's just what hurt my feelings so. You'd always pretended to be such a friend of mine, Larry, and here you were, able all the time to talk llke the villain in & play, and never, never-doing it for me? It made me feel as though you hadn't thought 1 was—attractive, and all that.” “I see!” sald Larry, rising. He, no more than any other healthy young man, enjoyed being laughed at. “Good night, Nelly-Lou. I'm going home.” “Have I made a fool of you—and shall I pay the price?” inquired Nelly- Lou, hopefully. \ “I'Il say. somebody has!” said Larry —and went, without so much as shak- ing hands. * X ¥ * ball clubs, or the last items from the Jacksonville track, or gay of those things Which & cuitivated man loves to hear discussed. But I was not worth it." As he neared the end of the shaving he spoke again, this time in a confidential, almost yearning tone. g /“Massage?’ he sald. “No, thank you.” “Shampoo -the scalp?” pered. “No, thanks.” | “Singe the halr? he coaxed. “No, thank: b > The barber made one more effort. *“Say,” he sald in my ear, a3 & thing concérning himself and me alone, “your halr's pretty well all falling out. You'd better let me just shampoo up the scalp a bit and stop up them follicles or- pretty soon you WO t——" : “No, thank you,” I sald, “not to- day.” 3 = This was all the barber could stand. He saw. that I was just one of those ‘miserable’ dead-beats who come to a barber shop merely for a shave, and who carry away the scalp and the follicles and al| the barber's perqui- sites as It they belonged to them. In'a second he had me thrown out >f the chair. “Next,” he shouted. As 1 passed down the line of the rarbers, 1 could.see contempt in every :ye while they turned on the full latter ‘of their revolving shampoo rushes and drowned the noise of my nisersble exit in the roar of machinery, he whis- PIsu.x-wu rose next day a trifle heavy eyed, but determinedly calm, and attended a luncheon and a tea In Sara’s honor. Sara,-it appear- ed at the tea, was leaving before long for the Maine coast. “No place in.the world can- ever be as lovely to'me as this. I've had the happiest.time here,” sighed Sara. Nelly-Lou, t6' whom this panegyric ‘was addressed, said she glad to ear it, and that Gainesville woutd be very dull -now. What Nelly-Lou wanted dreadfully to know was whether Sara would take with her Larry's ‘mother's . engagement ring, which had already done service for weveral generations 6f Proudfits, So the days went by, until the un- believeable day when Larry tele- phoned Nelly-Lou, = directly . after ‘breakfast, and sald in a queer, formal sort of vofce: “Nelly-Lou, . 'm ‘having a little party this afternoon—in the blue room of ‘the Thotel—there's a tea- dance—wlil you come?” “Why, let me, see—" said Lou. “It's for Miss Stanton. You know she's leaving: on Thuraddy,” said Larry. - Whereupon Nelly-Lou sald ! proudly, at once, that she would come. 8he-was in.the blue room exactly. at the appointed time, wepring Her pret- tiest frock and her simplest, floppiest hat, and looking .like, lovely, unen- lightened efghteen nstead of misera- bly disillusioned twenty-three. Larry u{no forward to meet her, smiling; . *You're just on tima, Nelly-Lou.' The ripple and twang of the or- & Nelly- home town with this stuff about ice- water in the veins instead of blood— and all the rest of it.” Across the little table Sara's eyes and Nelly- Lou's met briefly with an 'almost audible clash. Larry sat smiling oddly. “These. girls 'll be expecting all sorts of sobstuft from me,” he pro- tested, “and I won’t be able to de- liver it. I want 'you to tell Nelly- Lou you were just kidding, before she spreads it all over town and gets me a reputation I can't live up to." * kK K ¥ 1SS STANTON met his smile with a long inscrutable look She threw back her head and lowered her eyelids. The gesture was one of her best. “Well, if it wasn't vou,” she said indolently amused, "“it must have been one of the others. Really, Larry, I can't be expected to keep a card index of all the silly things men say tome. Did I tell Miss Johnston you'd , #aid something when you hadn't? So sorry!” “It doesn't matter sald Nelly-Lou icily. were burning. “Yes, darn it—it does matter!” said Larry. “I can't do this Romeo-in-a- balcony thing, and Sara won't be here to coach me—so I don't want it re- ported that I can.” “You're too deliclously absurd,” ob- served Miss Stanton. “Tell her I didn’t say it.” suggested Larry, but there was quiet insistence in his laughing look. “It must have been Jimmy."” “It was Jimmy 2" “Oh, I don't dare you!” yhow, you were kidding about me” Miss Stanton began to laugh, a trifle deliberately, but it grew into a cadenza of uncontrollable mirth. “You know it is too funny,” she sighed at last. “He takes himself very seriously, doesn’t he, Miss John- ston? Of course, it couldn’t have been you, Larry, dear. Now, are you hap- py? And have you any more Crows to plok with meé? Because, 1 you haver’t, you might run and inquire over the telephone where the rest of your very amusing party is.” “Coming In the doorway, moment, most opportunely, Larry. “Did you ask us for half after 4 and the rest for 57" suggested Miss Stanton. “I did,” said Larry. A moment later the party began in earnest. “Want to dance, Nelly-Lou?” asked Larry., He had stood with his hand on the back of her chair, significantly walting while Jimmy Wythe and Sara, Julla and a man from out of town drifted off together. The music was & waltz, seductively muted. “If the party is for Miss Stanton, you ought to be dancing with her, sald Nelly-Lou. She rose, neverthe less. “Well,” said Larry, smiling, “yofy see, Nelly-Lou, nobody but you thinf*} the party is for her.” He held out his arms and Nelly- Lou went into them—as one naturally does at the beginning of a dance. But her hand was rigidly impersonal; she averted her face and there was no ylelding in the' contact of her slim shoulders with his. Larry began to sing in a coaxing whisper while they danced: “Oh, how I want you, dear old pal o mine!” old pal o' mine!" The music sang it and sobbed it in, 2 variety of pleading nuances. - “Nelty-Lou,” said Larry, “didn’t you have any more faith than that in my —sense of humor?" “She ‘said you said it,” said Lou stubbornly. 3 “Sara’s & man-eater,” said Larry; he drew Nelly-Lou masterfully closer, to avold the impact of aireckless young couple behind them. “1 know,” said Nelly-Lou passion- ately. “It was nothing at all to her!" “What is it to you, Nelly-Eou" That quick, husky: whisper went to the core of 'Nelly-Lou's heart. She turned her head and looked up into Larry's eyes. Her white lids dropped before what she saw there: Deliberately he released her hand and took something from the inside pocket of his coat; deliberately he took back her hand amnd sald softl, “Let me see the other a minute When she }aid her left hand, palm outward, against his shoulder he slip-/ ped something upon her third finger, very quickly snd gquistly—they had not’ stopped dancing. The something was a great, gleaming cluster of 4l | monds in an' old-fashioned setting, Lairy’s mother's engagement ring. % ~ (Copyright, 1923.) + | in ;the least!” Her cheeks say it was—to at the said Nelly- .