United States -- Social life and customs -- 20th century -- Fiction
"Oh!" she mourned again. Then: "You're doing this so that you can afford
to buy paints and canvas and--and things to paint me," she accused. "It
isn't fair!"
"I'd do worse than this for that," he declared valiantly.
Less than a fortnight later she caught him doing worse. She had ceased
to speak to him of his chauffeurdom because it seemed to cause him
painful embarrassment. (It did, and should have!) There had been a big
theater party, important enough to get itself detailed in the valuable
columns which the papers devote to such matters, and afterward supper at
the most expensive uptown restaurant, Miss Roberta Holland being one of
the listed guests. As she took her place at the table, she caught a
glimpse of an unmistakable figure disappearing through the waiter's
exit. And Julien Tenney, who had risen from his little supper party of
four (stag) hastily but just too late, on catching sight of her, saw
that he was recognized. Flight, instant and permanent, had been his
original intent. Now it would not do. Bolder measures must be devised.
He appealed to the head-waiter to help him carry out a joke, and that
functionary, developing a sense of humor under the stimulus of a
twenty-dollar bill, procured him on the spot an ill-fitting coat and a
black string tie, and gave him certain simple directions. When the
patroness of Art next observed the object of her patronage, he was
performing the humble but useful duties of an omnibus.
Miss Holland suddenly lost a perfectly good and hitherto reliable
appetite.
Nor was she the only member of the supper party to develop symptoms of
shock. The gilded and stalwart youth on her left, following her glance,
stared at the amateur servitor with protruding eyes, ceased to eat or
drink, and fell into a state of semi-coma, muttering at intervals an
expressive monosyllable.
"Why not swear out loud, Caspar?" asked Bobbie presently. "It'll do you
less harm."
"D'you see that chap over yonder? The big, fine-looking one fixing the
forks?"
"Yes," said Bobbie faintly.
"Well, that's--No, by thunder, it can't be!--Yes, by the red-hot hinges,
it _is!_"
"Do you think you know him?"
"Know him! I _know_ him? He bunked in with me for two weeks at Grandpré.
He was captain of a machine-gun outfit sent down to help us clean out
that little wasp's nest. His name's Tenney, and if ever there was a
hellion in a fight! And see--what he's come to! My God!"
"Well, don't cry about it," advised the girl, serenely, though it was
hard for her to keep her voice steady. "There's nothing to do about it,
is there?"
"Isn't there!" retorted the youth, rising purposefully. "I'm going to
get him and find him a job that's fit for him if I have to take him into
partnership. Of all the dash-blanked-dod-blizzened--"
"Caspar! What are you going to do? Don't. You'll embarrass him
frightfully."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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