He halted, faced the double line of
women, mostly elderly, seated on the palm-roofed dais extending
the length of that end of the ballroom.
"Hel-LO!" called he. "Just the person I was looking for. How is
Margaret this evening?"
"As you see," replied the girl, unfurling the long fan of eagle
plumes with which she had tapped him. "Sit down.... Jackie"--this
to a rosy, eager-faced youth beside her--"run away and amuse
yourself. I want to talk seriously to this elderly person."
"I'm only seven years older than you," said Arkwright, as he
seated himself where Jackie had been vainly endeavoring to induce
Miss Severence to take him seriously.
"And I am twenty-eight, and have to admit to twenty-four," said
Margaret.
"Don't frown that way. It makes wrinkles; and what's more
unsightly than a wrinkled brow in a woman?"
"I don't in the least care," replied the girl. "I've made up my
mind to stop fooling and marry."
"Jackie?"
"If I can't do better." She laughed a low, sweet laugh, like her
voice; and her voice suggested a leisurely brook flitting among
mossy stones. "You see, I've lost that first bloom of youth the
wife-pickers prize so highly.
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