Argosy All-Story Weekly, April 7, 1928 — page 44: what you’re looking at

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

34 bert ever come to know a girl who dressed like that and looked so modern and chic? Funny; Viola had not been as startled at seeing Albert as she had been at seeing the girl. That spiffy Fifth Avenue dress, those sheer stockings, with the black line running up the calf, that pert hat, and, above all, the girl’s breezy man- ner, the way in which she had helped Albert get back the umbrella, her lin- gering touch on his forearm—where had Albert met a girl like that? And where did the dumb-bell think he was going with her? Humph! Chas- ing off like that and disappearing down the block— * Well!’ exclaimed Viola. One hand dropped to her hip, and she looked around the front room with a startled inquiry in her expression, as if to say: “What am I doing here, running his house and getting his sup- per, when he’s walking around with snappy looking girls? Wait till he gets home.”’ When he did get home, there seemed to emanate from her expression and at- titude one huge question mark. Albert fussed with a cigarette and scratched his match on every piece of metal in the kitchen before he was successful with it. When he was finally fortified with an inhalation of smoke, he broke the ice with a vague remark. “T—I escorted a young lady home in the rain,” he informed her. Viola tried to look haughty and dis- interested as she set the table. “T’m sure J don’t care, Albert. Why tell we that?” “Well, I thought maybe you'd seen me—us—and was wonderin’.” She did not answer, although she was aching to shriek at him: “ Who is that girl?” Trying not to look at him, she worked hurriedly about the kitchen. “Stop getting in my way all the time!’ she cried. “ Can’t you see [’m busy?” ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. “What ’re you sore for?” He was just sparring for time. “Oh, don’t bother me!” A meaning- less admonition, but indispensable to a wife in a domestic spat. “Gee, I just offered a girl my um- brella. That’s nothin’ to get sore about.” Viola stopped the wiping of a large, blue, willow-ware platter, and faced him in exasperation. “Aren’t you the innocent gallant knight, though? You never help me across a puddle like that. Why didn’t you throw down your good seventeen- dollar overcoat for her highness?” Albert started to collapse in the white chair, thought better of it and straddled it, his elbows pointing out- ward on the back. He made a good imitation of a young husband gnashing his teeth. “You don’t Know anything about it at all,’ he told her indignantly. “‘ She’s a friend—I mean, an acquaintance of mine.” “Oh, really? How charming.” Metaphorical porcupine quills bristled all over Viola. “She’s George Archer’s niece-in- law—his wife’s niece. I met them in the subway the other night—night I told you I met George.” Viola remembered his telling her about Archer, but she was sure Albert had said nothing about the flapper niece. Why had he concealed that fact until now—until he just had to confess that he knew her? She did not tell him what she thought, for, after all, perhaps it was best to give him enough rope to hang himself with. Well, she would show him how much she cared. “ She’s from the Middle West,” add- ed Albert, and it seemed to Viola that, as he said “‘ Middle West,” his voice had a catch in it, as if he felt that the Middle West was, because of the girl, the most glamorous land in the whole wide world. “She doesn’t interest me in the CEOPMIC OOO KS (E@)