Argosy All-Story Weekly, April 18, 1925 — page 37: what you’re looking at

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

DINNER FOR CYNTHIA. looked at Jane Stone, then, and her tender heart softened suddenly. An odd person she was, to be sure; but after fifteen min- utes of her own with Mrs. Ronalds, Cynthia felt that, to whatever small extent, she un- derstood. ‘“Come along, you beautiful young one,” grunted Mrs. Stone. ‘“ If you'll let me take your arm, we’ll move a bit faster.” Indeed, they were doing that very thing. They were making for the door—passing through the door—moving down the wide corridor toward the front of the huge house. And now another door had swung after them and they were in an apartment un- questionably Mrs. Stone’s. It was big and square, with an equally square bedroom visible just beyond. It was furnished severely, in heaviest of old black walnut and with two or three big, well-worn leather chairs. Into one of these the peculiar lady sank, motioning Cynthia to another. She grinned at Cynthia in the most knowing way. “ Now, my dear! “ Out with what?” “The truth!” ‘“‘ But I’ve been trying to tell you that,” Cynthia smiled, with just a shade of an- noyance. ‘‘ Your—your Neville and I are not engaged. He has never even—ah— mentioned such a thing to me at any time. You see—” Mrs. Stone stopped her with: “IT see! I see a whole lot more than you think I see. Have done with it! It’s as plain as the nose on your face, my dear. The boy has sworn you to secrecy, of course, and your fool little head’s so full of loyalty and love and all that poppy- cock that you’d be burned at the stake be- fore you’d admit a thing you thought he wouldn’t want you to admit!” propounded Mrs. Stone, with a prodigious chuckle. “You can’t fool the old woman, honey! She wasn’t built to be fooled!” “T’m not trying to fool you! We’re xot engaged!” Cynthia cried desperately. The elder lady considered her with grow- ing approval. “Well, whether you are or are not—of- ficially—I’m darned glad you're going to marry him,” she said. ‘I’ve got a dollar Out with it!” 187 or two to bet that one could comb the town over without finding another girl as sweet as yourself; and that’s not sugary bosh, my dear; that’s the honest opinion of a woman who has lived with her eyes open!”’ ‘But I—listen!” the caller said feverish- ly. “I don’t even know this Neville! If he were to come in here at this minute with —with two or three other boys, I wouldn’t know which was Neville!” ‘“My dear!” Mrs. Stone said sharply. “Tm not brilliant, perhaps; but credit me at least with a teaspoonful or so of brains! Just pause for an instant and think and see if it doesn’t strike even you as amazing that a girl who had never even seen Neville should have boarded a streak of greased lightning and come to call on his mother? I didn’t keep any particular track of the time, but I shouldn’t have said the mes- senger boy had had a chance to get to your home-——far less for you to answer my daughter’s note in person! Doubtless I’m wrong; but it seems to me that the average girl would have phoned Mrs. Ronalds and told her she was barking up the wrong tree?”’ And she leaned forward suddenly, piercing Cynthia with her penetrating eyes and laughed: “‘ Hey?” Miss Blair’s lips opened—and closed again grimly. ‘There are some things one tells a comparative stranger; there are others which pride forbids one to mention. Cynthia might have been hungry—might, indeed, be perishing from starvation at.this very moment—but it was no affair of the unusual person’s over there. The unusual person’s laugh had dwindled to a cackle. “ Didn’t have a very ready answer for that one, did you, my child?” she asked. ‘“That’s one of your greatest beauties, if only you knew it; you're all on the surface and that pretty face of yours is easier to read than any print. However, have it your own way, miss—what’s your first name?” “« Ah—Cynthia.”’ “Cynthy, eh?” smiled Mrs. Stone. “Even your name’s solid and fine and re- spectable. Upon my soul, you’re a find! You’re a jewel!” | ‘“ But I’m not really, you know! I—”’ ““ Have done with all that nonsense, Cyn- Gomichooks (EO)