Page:Barbour--Peggy in the rain.djvu/231

 your best friend, I think you're wise in forgetting and forgiving. Personally, I never could see Leona. Considering what very new people they are I think her airs are insufferable. But I must go. Have you seen a very large, fat man with a lovely bald head roaming around anywhere?"

"Having been in Chicago quite half an hour, he replied seriously, "I've seen some three or four thousand large, fat men. Large, fat men seem to be the principal industry in Chicago."

She rapped him playfully with her fan. "How we New Yorkers do love to 'knock' poor Chicago, don't we?"

"It's the breath of life to us," he replied. "May I ask whether the gentleman you describe so—so seductively is a new conquest. Fair Lady?"

"Conquest indeed! Nobody ever looks at me any more!" "From discretion, not choice."

The widow bridled and again brought her fan into use coquettishly. "The gentleman is Mr. Audel. Do you know him? He's quite charming, really, I ran across him at Berne, I think it was, and quite by accident we came back together on the Lusitania."