Parker!”

[121]

Glen Darrow registered extreme disgust.

“It would do you good! And it would do him good, to find one girl in the world who wasn’t crazy about him! He probably doesn’t believe there’s any such animal! Of course, after you knew him a little while, even you——”

Glen was quite visibly forcing herself to speak calmly and civilly. “I wish you wouldn’t, Janice. I know it’s just fun for you, but it’s something much more serious with me. It’s a matter of principle. He stands for everything I’ve been taught to despise. He’s a waster, and an idler, and a parasite——”

“All right, all right, I got you the first time!” Miss Jennings was cheerfully rude about it. “But it would be exactly like a story, wouldn’t it?— Haven’t you read a million where they start in with hating each other and— Well we’ll see! I’ll dope it out for you some way, if I possibly can. And in the meantime, happy days, old thing! Promise me you won’t make the final clinch without tipping me off?” She shook hands briskly and then gave her a sudden, shamefaced hug. “So long!”

[122]Glen turned back, but she had gone only a few steps when she heard Janice calling to her and waited for her.

[122]

“I suppose you know that Nancy Carey has a secret crush on your sheik, don’t you?”

“Nancy Carey?” Glen stared and then laughed. The thing was absurd on the face of it.

“All right, laugh; but don’t say I didn’t hang out the red lantern! She’s a dumb-bell, that girl. Solid bone from the beads on up. But that’s not saying she doesn’t generally get what she wants; the dumb-bells usually do, and the little foxes like me lose out! Well, on your way!”

But once more she hailed her, and this time when Glen walked halfway back to meet her she was giggling. “Say, I never told you about Peter Piper’s toast on Mother’s Day, did I?”

Glen conveyed coldly that she had not, and that she needed not now repair the omission.

“It’s a classic! It’s been told all over the map, and printed and reprinted till you’d think the mama would be ashamed to show herself on a platform. Of course, I figure there was a good deal of truth in it, though I’ll admit it was a pretty fresh thing to say. Mrs. Parker is a 

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