Argosy All-Story Weekly, November 13, 1920 — page 12: what you’re looking at

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

. hearer. 290 ‘“ Rather!” said the slightly stout man. “T brought Ran here. He pretends to hate social staggers.”’ “Really!” Her pursed lips and slightly arched brows teased Masters. “Not a bit of it!” sure her while the boyish trick of blushing that his thirty years had never been able _ to overcome, made his face dull red. “ You were saying—”’ “That we were talking about money,”’ said Norine Lawton. ‘“ We always talk about it nowadays, don’t we? That—or marriage!” With a quick little sidewise glance at him. ‘“ Do you know that Jerry Brent made—oh, thousands—in the mar- ket to-day?”’ ‘““T don’t follow stocks siebuladly,” said Ranfield Masters. His hand dropped against the heavy silk of her gown, and he felt a queer tremor through his entire body. “Don’t you?” Norine was answering his last remark. “ It’s all rotten confusing to me! Business is generally stupid. But I suppose when GRE has just heaps and heaps of money—”’ “Mighty likely to find the heaps going in the wrong direction if you meddle with stocks,”’ said Laurie Truedale. “Jerry has inimitable luck!” said No- rine, her clear pale cheeks flushing slightly. ‘“‘T suppose, to him, it’s just a great big sporting game! And with that angle on it, it isn’t likely to be particularly boring. If I were a man, I think I’d play it too!” Her eyes had grown eager, her hands half went out as though to draw something “Play, and play!” she cried. ~ © Until I was—trich!” She stopped speaking and _ slumped against the dull blue of the divan, laugh- ing alternately at the two men. “ Sounds as if I wanted to be a—what do you call it?’ Bear!” she said. ‘‘ Queer name! Every time I hear the words stock ex- change, I seem to see numbers of cinna- mon-colored bears walking about and stamping ticker-tape under -their padded paws. Childish, isn’t it? And one should be frightfully blasé at Betty’s things—like her ballroom. Ah! A trot! And yours! I remember.” He hastened to as- ARGOSY-ALLSTORY WEEKLY. She smiled at Masters, with a little nod of farewell for Laurie Truedale as she rose and moved toward the dance-floor. Norine Lawton talked but little when she danced, but her partners never felt the jack. Dancing to her was not a conven- tional whirling in stated form, but an emo- tion which she generally succeeded in trans- mitting to her companion. Under her spell Masters found himself attempting more and more audacious steps in an inescapable rhythm. The swirling men and women about him faded from his vision and left him alone with her. The exquisite, old- world quality that he had sensed in her, half frightened him as though he felt that she and her faded brocades might slip from him into the witchery of things dead. ‘You trot well! Very well!” she said, a bit breathlessly when it was over. In a daze he guided her past the raised lor- gnettes of the dowagers, the lifted brows of the three-or-four-season girls, the giggle of the débutantes, back to the blue divan. There James Cordon was waiting for her. He rose and bowed in a manner not unlike the bewigged, eighteenth century men Masters had unconsciously associated her with. He was a queer old Beau Brummel, James Cordon, whose Jack of business ability had made him an eternal borrower from his more prosperous friends. He was the always-available filler-in, the man who took to dinner the girl who had no suitors. “Waiting for you,” he said. His man- ner of speech was jerky in contrast to the courtliness of his bow. ‘‘ Been looking for- ward to this dance all the evening. Hope you’ve done likewise. Would you care for punch?” “Thank you, no!” said Norine, insinu- ating Masters into a seat beside ner Under the run of the other man’s con- versation, Masters made his hesitating re- quest to call. “Of course!” Norine answered. “ I’m visiting Betty just at present, you know. Any time you'd care-—”’ “No evening complete without at jaeae one dance with you,” Cordon was saying as he crossed his right knee over his slight- ly shiny left one. “ You know, Miss No- rine, [ wonder you don’t marry.” Eomichbooks () (E) ml