United States or Jordan ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
She telephoned to him from the Biltmore. "Is that you, Polly? This is Kedzie Dyckman. Say, Polly, do you know of a decent house that is for sale or rent right away quick? Oh, I don't care how much it costs, so it's a cracker jack of a house. I suppose I've got to take it furnished, being in such a hurry; or could you get a gang of decorators in and do a rush job?
Then a substantial sweet: a coupe aux marrons or a nesselrode pudding, yes?" Kedzie wanted to ask for a plain, familiar vanilla ice-cream, but she knew better. She ordered the nesselrode and got her ice-cream, after all. There were chestnuts in it, too so she was glad she had not selected the coupe aux marrons.
Kedzie never feared that it might have a scarlet-letter significance. She forgot that she was anything but a newborn, full-fledged angel without a past only a future with the sky for its limit. Alas! we always have our pasts. Even the unborn babe has already centuries of a past. It was Ferriday who brought Kedzie home to hers. "What about dinner to-night, my dear?
Had not his backers threatened to murder him or sue him if he did not finish the big feature? At such times Kedzie usually kissed Ferriday to keep him quiet. But she was as careful not to give too many kisses as she had been not to put too many caramels in half a pound when she had clerked in the little candy-store.
Somehow it seemed cruelest of all to leave her there. The town was monstrously lonely when Kedzie turned back to her widowhood. Jim's mother and father and sister were touched by her grief and begged her to make their home hers, but she shook her head. For a while her grief and her pride sustained her. She was the Spartan wife of the brave soldier.
She would show Jim that she could economize. When Kedzie told Mrs. Dyckman that she had decided to move, Mrs. Dyckman was very much concerned lest Kedzie feel put out. But she smiled to herself: she knew her Kedzie. Jim was not at all pleased with the arrangement, but he yielded. In the American family the wife is the quartermaster, selects the camp and equips it.
"I don't want to," he said, as hurt as an overgrown boy or a prima donna. The door opened, and a wave of light swept into the room. A voice followed it. "Is Miss Adair in there?" "Yes," Kedzie answered, in confusion. "Gent'man to see you." It was Jim Dyckman. He followed closely and entered the room just as Ferriday found the electric button and switched on the light.
Dyckman's report of the ordeal to her husband. She was angry at Mrs. Dyckman, but angrier still at her mother. Kedzie's father and mother were an increasing annoyance to Kedzie's pride and her peace. They wanted to get out to Nimrim and make a triumph through the village. And Jim and Kedzie were glad to pay the freight.
Kedzie was studying the bill of fare with blurred and frightened vision when she heard the footsteps of the waiter plainly audible in the quiet room. They had a curious rhythm. There was a hitch in the step, a skip. Her heart stopped as if it had run into a tree.
He did not explain that he carried two or three visible fist marks from Cheever's knuckles which he did not wish to exhibit in a public restaurant. So Kedzie dined at home in solitary gloom. She had only herself for guest and found herself most stupid company. She dined in her bathrobe and began immediately after dinner to dress for conquest.
Word Of The Day