Page:Frank Owen - Woman Without Love (1949 reprint).djvu/124

 Ï know where you can get them for fifteen cents each. Too bad you didn't come tomorrow and we could have eaten at Sardi's. Tomorrow I will get a check for seventy-five dollars. I actually sold a story called, The Cheerful Moron."

"Good for you," she said. "You are bound to be a success if you stick to subjects that you know."

"You mean I'm a moron?" he asked belligerently.

"What are you trying to do?" she asked sweetly. "Pick a fight so you don't have to buy me that sandwich?"

"Oh, come on," he said, still pouting. "And you can have coffee too. I go the limit when I take a girl out."

"Mercy!" she exclaimed.

After they were seated at the lunch counter and had given their order, the battle commenced anew.

"Jimmy, what's the matter with you?" she asked. "Why are you avoiding me?"

"Because you're rich," he burst out.

"Is that a crime?" she asked innocently.

"Well I wouldn't marry a girl who was rich."

"Why not?"

"It would hurt my pride."

She looked at her coffee cup and smiled to herself. Jimmy was such a foolish dear he was almost impossible. She had to be careful how she handled him. So she said: "Perhaps a girl who was rich wouldn't have you."

"Why wouldn't she?" he blazed.

"Because you're poor," she said meekly.

"A fine girl she'd be, to throw me down because I was poor."

"She wouldn't be any worse than you, to throw her down because she was rich."

"That's different."

"The cases seem parallel to me. However, don't worry, Jimmy. You needn't run away from me to escape marriage, because I wouldn't have you. So even if you did propose to me in a weak moment, I'd refuse you. Now isn't that swell? You have nothing to worry about."

"I don't know," he considered moodily. "A guy doesn't like to be told by a girl that she wouldn't have him."