He deliberately invented an excuse to call, some detail of work which,
more easily than not, could have waited until the next day. He was not
only using the detail of work as a means to visit Mary but as an
excuse to escape a parlour lecture on "What astral vibrations does
your given name bring you?" by a pale-faced young woman. The
pale-faced young woman boasted of an advanced soul and was making a
snug bank account from the rich set in undertaking occult analyses of
their names by which to decide whether or not the accompanying astral
vibrations harmonized with their auras; and if they did not--and were
therefore detrimental and hampering to spiritual development and
material progress--she would evolve occult names for them which would
be sort of spiritual bits of cheese in material mousetraps baiting and
capturing all the good things of this world and the next.
Convinced that Beatrice was not the proper name for her the Gorgeous
Girl had ordered a chart of cabalistic signs and mystical statements,
the sum total of which was that Radia was the name the astral forces
wished her to be called, and by using this name she would develop into
a wonderful medium. She paid fifty dollars to discover that she ought
to be called Radia and that her aura was of smoky lavender, denoting
an advanced soul--according to the pale-faced young woman, who had
tired of teaching nonsensical flappers, had no chance to marry, and
had hit upon this as her means of painlessly extracting a little _joie
de vie_.
Declining to learn his astral name Steve left Gaylord to mop up the
astral vibrations. Beatrice did not mind his absence though he
neglected to say that the work was to be done at Miss Faithful's
apartment and not at the office. Never having questioned Steve in such
details Beatrice merely murmured inwardly that goat tending in one's
past strangely enough led to pigheadedness in later life. It was a
relief to have him away, for if drawn into an argument he still
thumped his fists. For everyday living Beatrice preferred her own pet
robins and angel-ducks, as she called the boys of the younger set, who
flocked to flirt with her because she was extremely rich and pretty
and they were in no danger of being matrimonially entangled.
Of course Gaylord ate up this occult-name affair. It was discovered
that Gaylord's was a most hampering name and had his parents only
consulted the stars and named him Scintar--who knows to what
heights he might not have risen? Trudy's astral title should have
been Urcia, which she now adopted, blushing deeply as she recalled
the vulgar Babseley and Bubseley of former days. But when Aunt Belle
was informed that Cinil was the cognomen needed to make her discover
an Indian-summer millionaire waiting to bestow his heart upon her
Mark Constantine had packed his bags and departed unceremoniously for
Hot Springs.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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