Page:Frank Owen - Woman Without Love (1949 reprint).djvu/135

 was Dorothy Blaine. Jimmy Whale was not invited but Dorothy decided to take him along anyway. She never stood on ceremony.

When Jimmy received his verbal invitation from Dorothy, he stoutly declared that he wasn't going. They couldn't have fought more ardently if they had been married.

"I hate society," he declared fervently, "and I haven't got a dress suit and even if I had one I wouldn't go even if I liked society which I don't."

Dorothy was persistent and at last she wore him down. Grudgingly he promised to hire a full-dress suit. When the night of the concert arrived, Jimmy presented himself at the Blaine home carrying his suit in a large box under his arm.

"I'm going to dress here," he said sulkily to Dorothy. "I wouldn't walk through the streets in such a rig. Everybody would think I'd suddenly gone loony."

"Couldn't you take a taxi?"

"I never thought of it."

He went up to Timothy's room to dress while Dorothy splashed about in her bath. Even though she took unusual care in dressing she was downstairs long before Jimmy. Mary Blaine sat in an armchair before the fire with a quizzical smile on her face. The night was cool and a pine log was blazing on the open hearth.

"I can't understand what's happened to Jimmy," said Dorothy.

Before Mary could answer, Jimmy himself stalked into the room. He was gorgeously arrayed in the full-dress suit but it was several sizes too small for him. The sleeves were creeping up his arms. The trousers were at least two inches from his shoe-tops and in between the trousers and vest was a broad expanse of white shirt.

Dorothy howled with laughter. Jimmy tried to look horrified though secretly he was pleased that he had walked off from the costumers with the wrong suit. Now he wouldn't have to go to that damned concert, in that damned Rolls-Royce with that damned girl.

"You look," said Dorothy hysterically, "as though you'd been