ffie's face.

"Love's young dream is all right. But you've reached the age when you
let your cigar ash dribble down onto your vest. Now me, I've got a
kimono nature but a straight-front job, and it's kept me young. Young!
I've got to be. That's my stock in trade. You see, Gabie, we're just
twenty years late, both of us. They're not going to boost your salary.
These days they're looking for kids on the road--live wires, with a lot
of nerve and a quick come-back. They don't want old-timers. Why, say,
Gabie, if I was to tell you what I spend in face powder and toilette
water and hairpins alone, you'd think I'd made a mistake and given you
the butcher bill instead. And I'm no professional beauty, either. Only
it takes money to look cleaned and pressed in this town."

In the seclusion of the cafe corner, Gabe laid one plump, highly
manicured hand on Effie's smooth arm. "You wouldn't need to stay young
for me, Effie. I like you just as you are, with out the powder, or the
toilette water, or the hair-pins."

His red, good-natured face had an expression upon it that was touchingly
near patient resignation as he looked up into Effie's sparkling
countenance. "You never looked so good to me as you do this minute, old
girl. And if the day comes when you get lonesome--or change your
mind--or----"

Effie shook her head, and started to draw on her long white gloves. "I
guess I haven't refused you the way the dames in the novels do it. Maybe
it's because I've had so little practice. But I want to say this, Gabe.
Thank God I don't have to die knowing that no man ever wanted me to be
his wife. Honestly, I'm that grateful that I'd marry you in a minute if
I didn't like you so well."

"I'll be back in three months, like always," was all that Gabe said. "I
ain't going to write. When I get here we'll just take in a show, and the
younger you look the better I'll like it."

But on the occasion of Gabe's spring trip he encountered a statuesque
blonde person where Effie had been wont to reign.

"Miss--er Bauer out of town?"

The statue melted a trifle in the sunshine of Gabe's ingratiating smile.

"Miss Bauer's ill," the statue informed him, using a heavy Eastern
accent. "Anything I can do for you? I'm taking her place."

"Why--ah--not exactly; no," said Gabe. "Just a temporary indisposition,
I suppose?"

"Well, you wouldn't hardly call it that, seeing that she's been sick with
typhoid for seven weeks."

"Ty