Page:Glitter (1926).pdf/38

 scious minute and all he said was, 'I think I could have gone a little faster.

Yvonne paused again, and traced hieroglyphics on the table cloth with the point of a glistening fingernail. Jock said nothing. Presently she went on. "I always thought it was rather pathetic about George Washington. After all he did, and all he went through, he finally died at home of a sore throat or something. He might at least have caught it at Valley Forge—that would have made it a little better. If I die of a common-or-garden disease like that I hope I catch it in some colorful way. Pneumonia from sitting at an Army-Navy game in the rain, or blood poison from putting lipstick on a cracked lip, or heart trouble from kissing somebody. Am I boring you?"

"I was never less bored in my life."

"I have a horror of boring people. Speaking of dying, I'd like to have this for an epitaph: 'Here lies the body of one who never bored anybody.' But I dare say it wouldn't be true. Anyway, to go on, I believe in freedom. In everything. I abhor rules and conventions. What right has any human being to tell me what I can and cannot do? Who are they, that they should"

Her voice ceased so abruptly that Jock glanced up in surprise—then turned his head to follow her wide stare. He saw a man approaching, a large man, perfectly groomed, and handsome in a well-kept, careful sort of way, so that you knew in all probability he carried about him that barber shop odor and was immensely fastidious about his collars and his fingernails.

He inclined his head gravely to Yvonne and raked Jock with cold light-blue eyes. He chose the table next them. As soon as he was seated, Yvonne rose without a word and left Jock to go to him.