"I must run home now. I
liked the dinner very much, Mr. Chandler."
He shook hands with her, smiling cordially, and said something about a
game of bridge at his club. He watched her for a moment, walking rather
rapidly eastward, and then he found a cab to drive him slowly homeward.
In his chilly bedroom Chandler laid away his evening clothes for a
sixty-nine days' rest. He went about it thoughtfully.
"That was a stunning girl," he said to himself. "She's all right, too,
I'd be sworn, even if she does have to work. Perhaps if I'd told her
the truth instead of all that razzle-dazzle we might--but, confound it!
I had to play up to my clothes."
Thus spoke the brave who was born and reared in the wigwams of the tribe
of the Manhattans.
The girl, after leaving her entertainer, sped swiftly cross-town until
she arrived at a handsome and sedate mansion two squares to the east,
facing on that avenue which is the highway of Mammon and the auxiliary
gods. Here she entered hurriedly and ascended to a room where a handsome
young lady in an elaborate house dress was looking anxiously out the
window.
"Oh, you madcap!" exclaimed the elder girl, when the other entered.
"When will you quit frightening us this way? It is two hours since you
ran out in that rag of an old dress and Marie's hat. Mamma has been so
alarmed. She sent Louis in the auto to try to find you. You are a bad,
thoughtless Puss."
The elder girl touched a button, and a maid came in a moment.
"Marie, tell mamma that Miss Marian has returned."
"Don't scold, sister. I only ran down to Mme. Theo's to tell her to use
mauve insertion instead of pink. My costume and Marie's hat were just
what I needed. Every one thought I was a shopgirl, I am sure."
"Dinner is over, dear; you stayed so late."
"I know. I slipped on the sidewalk and turned my ankle. I could not
walk, so I hobbled into a restaurant and sat there until I was better.
That is why I was so long."
The two girls sat in the window seat, looking out at the lights and the
stream of hurrying vehicles in the avenue. The younger one cuddled down
with her head in her sister's lap.
"We will have to marry some day," she said dreamily--"both of us. We
have so much money that we will not be allowed to disappoint the public.
Do you want me to tell you the kind of a man I could love, Sis?"
"Go on, you scatterbrain," smiled the other.
"I could love a man with dark and kind blue eyes, who is gentle and
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