I
wear? Don't you adore my tropical winter sea, my gardens, my palm trees,
my moonlight, and my music? They are all for you, dearie--so why
shouldn't you pay? Don't I take you from the northern cold and slush?
Haven't I built a siding for your private car, and made an anchorage for
your yacht? Don't I let you do as you please? Don't I keep you amused?
Don't you love to look at me? Don't I put my warm red lips to yours?
Well, then, dearie, what is all your money for?' ... That is her way of
talking to them! That is the sort of creature that she is!"

"Shocking!" says the visitor, rising and looking for his hat "You say
hers is the third large house from here?"

"Yes. Remember, she's as mercenary as can be!"

"Thanks. I can take care of myself. If she's amusing that suits me.
Good-by."

In the vestibule he pauses to count his money.

"Jacksonville seems to be a nice girl," he says to himself as he hastens
down the block. "I imagine she might make a good wife and mother, and
that she'd help her husband on in business. However, I'm not thinking of
getting married and settling down in Florida. I'm out for some fun. I
think I'll run in and call upon Mrs. Palm-Beach."

CHAPTER LIII

PASSIONATE PALM BEACH

A very merry, dancing, drinking,
Laughing, quaffing and unthinking time.

--DRYDEN.

Like all places in which idlers try to avoid finding out that they are
idle, Palm Beach has very definite customs as to where to go, and at
what time to go there. Excepting in its hours for going to bed and
getting up, it runs on schedule. The official day begins with the
bathing hour--half past eleven to half past twelve--when the two or
three thousand people from the pair of vast hotels assemble before the
casino on the beach. Golfers will, of course, be upon the links before
this hour; fishermen will be casting from the pier or will be out in
boats searching the sail fish--that being the "fashionable" fish at the
present time; ladies of excessive circumference will be panting rapidly
along the walks, their eyes holding that look of dreamy determination
which painters put into the eyes of martyrs, and which a fixed intention
to lose twenty pounds puts into the eyes of banting women. So, too,
certain gentlemen of swarthy skin make their way to the casino sun
parlor, where they disrobe and bake until the bathing hour. The object
of this practice is to acquire, as nearly as a white man may, the
complexion of a