"Oh, fun!" accepted the nominee with delight. "We had a course in that at school." And Winnie, in all the glory of her fluffy youthfulness, toyed carefully with the points of her Moorish collar. "I was elected chaperon of the Midnight Fudge Club, and the girls all said that I fooled Old Meow oftener than anybody!" 

 Thereafter there was no lull in the conversation; for Winnie, once started on school reminiscences, filled all gaps to overflowing; and Sammy Chirp, he of the feeble smile, whose diffidence had denied him the gift of language, gazed on her in rapt and happy stupefaction. 

 Meanwhile, Johnny Gamble found himself gazing as raptly at Constance until the chaperon, in a brief interlude between reminiscences, caught him at it. She reached over and touched him on the back of the hand with the tip of one soft pink finger. Immediately she held that finger to her right eye and closed her left one, and Johnny felt himself blushing like a school-boy. 

 There was a trace of resentment in his embarrassment, he found. The strain of being compelled to make a million dollars, before he could tell this only desirable young woman in the world that he loved her, was beginning to oppress him. He wanted to tell her now; but it was a task beyond him to ask her to forfeit her own fortune until he could replace it by another. Times were hard, he reflected. 

 He was now twelve hours behind his schedule and possessed of sixty thousand dollars less than he should have. At nine o'clock to-morrow morning that deficit would begin to pile up again at the rate of five thousand dollars an hour. By comparison their auto seemed slow, and he spoke to the driver about it. How well Constance Joy was in sympathy with him and followed his thought, was shown by the fact that she heartily agreed with him, though they were already exceeding the Brooklyn speed limit. 

 "I not only want to be the chaperon but the dictator of this tour," declared Winnie when they alighted at the big playground. "I've never been here before, and I don't want anybody to tell me anything I'm going to see." 

 "It's your party," announced Johnny promptly. "Let's be plumb vulgar about it." And he thrust a big roll of bills into her hands. 

 "You're a darling!" she exclaimed, her eyes glistening with delight. "May I kiss him, girls?" 

 "Ask Johnny," laughed Polly, but Johnny had disappeared behind the others of the party. 

 Prev. P 84/152 next