The Wall Street Girl. Bartlett Frederick Orin

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СКАЧАТЬ style="font-size:15px;">      Frances puckered her brows.

      “You are to have a very busy time these next few weeks,” she informed him. “Let me see–to-day is Wednesday. On Friday we are to go to the Moores’. Evelyn’s débutante dance, you know.”

      She wrote it in his book.

      “On Saturday we go to the opera. The Warringtons have asked us to a box party.”

      She wrote that.

      “Next Wednesday comes the Stanley cotillion. Have you received your invitation?”

      “Haven’t seen it,” he answered.

      “The Stanleys are always unpardonably late, but I helped Elise make out her list. On the following Friday we dine at the Westons’.”

      She wrote that.

      “On the following Saturday I’m to give a box party at the opera–the Moores and Warringtons.”

      She added that, and looked over the list.

      “And I suppose, after going to this trouble, I’ll have to remind you all over again on the day of each event.”

      “Oh, I don’t know; but–” He hesitated.

      “Well?” she demanded.

      “Seems to me we are getting pretty gay, aren’t we?”

      “Don’t talk like an old man!” she scolded. “So far, this has been a very stupid season.”

      “But–”

      “Well?”

      “You know, now I’m in business–”

      “Please don’t remind me of that any more than is necessary,” she interrupted.

      “Oh, all right; only, I do have to get up in the morning.”

      “Why remind me of that? It’s disagreeable enough having to think of it even occasionally.”

      “But I do, you know.”

      “I know it, Don. Honestly I do.”

      She seated herself on the arm of his chair, with an arm about his neck and her cheek against his hair.

      “And I think it quite too bad,” she assured him–“which is why I don’t like to talk about it.”

      She sprang to her feet again.

      “Now, Don, you must practice with me some of the new steps. You’ll get very rusty if you don’t.”

      “I’d rather hear you sing,” he ventured.

      “This is much more important,” she replied.

      She placed a Maxixe record on the Victrola that stood by the piano; then she held out her arms to him.

      “Poor old hard-working Don!” she laughed as he rose.

      It was true that it was as poor old hard-working Don he moved toward her. But there was magic in her lithe young body; there was magic in her warm hand; there was magic in her swimming eyes. As he fell into the rhythm of the music and breathed the incense of her hair, he was whirled into another world–a world of laughter and melody and care-free fairies. But the two most beautiful fairies of all were her two beautiful eyes, which urged him to dance faster and faster, and which left him in the end stooping, with short breaths, above her upturned lips.

      CHAPTER VII

      ROSES

      When Miss Winthrop changed her mind and consented not to seek a new luncheon place, she was taking a chance, and she knew it. If ever Blake heard of the new arrangement,–and he was sure to hear of it if any one ever saw her there with Don,–she was fully aware how he would interpret it to the whole office.

      She was taking a chance, and she knew it–knew it with a curious sense of elation. She was taking a chance for him. This hour at noon was the only opportunity she had of talking to Don. If she let that pass, then she could do nothing more for him. She must stand back and watch him go his own way, as others had gone their way.

      For one thing was certain: she could allow no further conversations in the office. She had been forced to stop those, and had warned him that he must not speak to her again there except on business, and that he must not sit at Powers’s desk and watch her at work. When he had challenged her for a reason, she had blushed; then she had replied simply:–

      “It isn’t business.”

      So, when on Saturday morning Don came in heavy-eyed for lack of sleep after the Moore dance, she merely looked up and nodded and went on with her work. But she studied him a dozen times when he did not know she was studying him, and frowned every time he suppressed, with difficulty, a yawn. He appeared tired–dead tired.

      For the first time in months she found herself looking forward to the noon hour. She glanced at her watch at eleven-thirty, at eleven-forty-five, and again at five minutes before twelve.

      To-day she reserved a seat for him in the little lunch-room. But at fifteen minutes past twelve, when Don usually strode in the door, he had not come. At twenty minutes past he had not come. If he did not come in another five minutes she resolved to make no further effort to keep his place–either to-day or at any future time. At first she was irritated; then she was worried. It was possible he was lunching with Blake. If he began that–well, she would be freed of all further responsibility, for one thing. But at this point Don entered. He made no apologies for having kept her waiting, but deposited in the empty chair, as he went off for his sandwich and coffee, a long, narrow box done up in white paper. She gave him time to eat a portion of his lunch before she asked:–

      “Out late again last night?”

      “Went to a dance,” he nodded.

      She was relieved to hear that. It was a better excuse than some, but still it was not a justifiable excuse for a man who needed all his energies.

      “You didn’t get enough sleep, then.”

      “I should say not,” Don admitted cheerfully. “In bed at four and up at seven.”

      “You look it.”

      “And I feel it.”

      “You can’t keep that up long.”

      “Sunday’s coming, and I’m going to sleep all day,” he declared.

      “But what’s the use of getting into that condition?” she inquired.

      He thought a moment.

      “Well, I don’t suppose a man can cut off everything just because he’s in business.”

      “That’s part of the business–at the beginning,” she returned.

      “To work all the time?”

      “To work all the time,” she nodded. “I wish I had your chance.”

      “My СКАЧАТЬ