Page:Love Insurance - Earl Biggers (1914).djvu/136

Rh gets them off. I looked up her beauty doctor and asked him if he couldn't put a witty gleam in her eye, but he told me he didn't care to go that far in correcting Mrs. Bruce's Maker."

They had reached the Villa Jasmine now, a great white palace in a flowery setting more like a dream than a reality. The evening breeze murmured whisperingly through the palms, a hundred gorgeous colors shone in the moonlight, fountains splashed coolly amid the greenery.

"Act Two," muttered Minot. "The grounds surrounding the castle of the fairy princess."

"You have to come down here, don't you," replied Paddock, "to realize that old Mother Nature has a little on Belasco, after all?"

The whir of a motor behind them caused the two young men to turn. Then Mr. Minot saw her coming up the path toward him—coming up that fantastic avenue of palms—tall, fair, white, a lovely figure in a lovely setting—

Ah, yes—Lord Harrowby! He walked at her side, nonchalant, distinguished, almost as tall as a popular illustrator thinks a man in evening clothes should be. Truly, they made a handsome