Page:Flaming Youth black on red.pdf/315

 CHAPTER

XXXIII

From the time when Dr. Osterhout assured her of her secret’s safety, Pat knew that she must tell her fiancé, before the wedding. Some quirk of feminine psychology would have justified her in concealment, so long as there was risk, The chances of the game! But to go forward upon the path of marriage in perfect safety and with an

unsuspecting mate—that was, in her mind, mean. osity, too, that restless, morbid

exciting thing would result, pressed her. experimentalist was rampant within her.

Monty take it?

Curi-

craving to know what

The daring How would

What would he do?

. . - How should she tell him? ... Opportunity paved the way. A group of her set were at Holiday Knoll on a Saturday evening, discussing the local sensation of the day. Generously measured highballs had been distributed, and in the dim conservatory, lighted

only by the glow of cigarettes, they discussed the event. A betrothed girl of another suburb had committed suicide after the breaking of her engagement and gossip ascribed the tragedy to the inopportune discovery of an old love affair. With the freedom of the modern flapper, Margaret Thorne, half lying in the arms of Nick Torrance on the settee, declared the position: “It was the Teddy Barnaby business. Two years age we all thought they were engaged.” “Weren’t they?” asked someone. “More or less,” asseverated the sprightly Miss Thorne. “Chiefly more, from all accounts. Then Johnny Dupuy

came here to live, and she shifted her young affections to him and caught him.” 311