Page:Flaming Youth black on red.pdf/61

 FLAMING

“Oh, have you!

YOUTH

57

Well, you can find out then.”

“T think you’re mean. You’d tell Dee if she asked you.” “I wouldn’t tell anyone. It’s disgusting to be so—se prying. Where do you get such ideas?” Pat reflected before answering. “Don’t all girls have ?em Pp?

“If they do, they don’t talk about them.” “Oh, that’s all bunk,” declared the cheerful Pat.

“if

you’ve got the idea inside you, you might as well spit it out. ... Dll bet men tell.” The bride looked at the clever, eager, childish face with sudden panic. “If I thought they did,” she began, but immediately broke off, taking a plaintive, invalidish tone. “Do go away, Scrubs! You’re making my head ache. And for heaven’s sake, don’t stare at me to-morrow like

you have to-day. It gives me the creeps.” “Tt gives me the thrills,” returned the alarmingly outspoken ingénue, as she danced out. Throughout the ceremony of the following day, Pat’s interest was divided between the bride and an equally absorbing prepossession. She had, so she told herself, fallen desperately in love with one of the ushers, a Boston man named Vincent. To her infatuated eyes he was adorably handsome, and so romantic looking, though quite old. Probably thirty! On the previous evening he had chatted casually with her for five minutes, finding the odd, eager child with the sombre eyes and the effortful affectation of grown-up-ness mildly amusing. Going up the aisle he had made her heart leap by giving her a little friendly nod. During the ceremony she brooded on him, building up the airiest of vague and roseate sentimentalities for the far future, and for the near, nursing

the belief that he would surely seek her out as soon as