Page:Brewster's millions (IA brewstersmillion00greaiala).pdf/142

 "I don't understand," and Barbara's curiosity overcame her determination not to speak.

"Don't you remember the picture of the man who was called upon to take his late fiancée out to dinner?"

The awful silence with which this remark was received put an end to further efforts at humor.

The dinner was probably the most painful experience in their lives. Barbara had come to it softened and ready to meet him half way. The right kind of humility in Monty would have found her plastic. But she had very definite and rigid ideas of his duty in the premises. And Monty was too simple minded to seem to suffer, and much too flippant to understand. It was plain to each that the other did not expect to talk, but they both realized that they owed a duty to appearances and to their hostess. Through two courses, at least, there was dead silence between them. It seemed as though every eye in the room were on them and every mind were speculating. At last, in sheer desperation, Barbara turned to him with the first smile he had seen on her face in days. There was no smile in her eyes, however, and Monty understood.