Page:Anderson--Isle of seven moons.djvu/78

66 Lucille foretold. On my hands they bring luck, but off, good-night!"

"Sounds like an intrestin' movie in a nickelette," said Carlotta, then issued a raucous order.

"Gustaf, a bottle o' Bud for the gentleman, or will you have a highball, Mac?"

"Neither, thanks."

"Oh, I forgot, yuh always was a high-principled man, Mac."

But it was her turn, and she flounced from the table out into the little clear space, in an ensemble of raucous voice, twitching head, hips, and shoulders, all at a ludicrous but most engaging tempo—her pace was always accellerando.

She joined him again, to find a fourteen-year old youngster with ferret eyes and a Semitic nose whose hawk-curve was a grotesque caricature of his sister's well-shaped one. After a whispered colloquy, a modulation which she achieved with difficulty, Carlotta groped in her well-developed bosom, and the requested greenback rustled in the boy's hand.

"Now, run along, Izzy, and don't shoot any craps on the way home—see. And give love to the Momma.

"But where yuh been, Mac?"

"Week-ending with a friend of yours."

"Bar Harbour or Newport?" she jeered.

"Neither—Salthaven, Mass."

She concealed a sudden look of apprehension, leaning towards the gambler with an assumed tenderness that had absolutely no effect.