Page:Lynch Williams--The stolen story and other newspaper stories.djvu/131

 ing at him. It was her regular smile, the one she used every evening. Whether she had cut him before or not she meant to allow him to speak to her now. She held out her hand, condescendingly, it seemed to Linton, who was hating her, hating Lawrence, and hating himself.

The husband did not shake hands; he merely said, "How do," and looked like a prosperous, well-nurtured New Yorker. Linton hated him, too, and took out his handkerchief to wipe his brow, which was wet; and Mrs. Wells said, "I did not know that you had taken up journalism. What paper do you write for? It must be very exciting. Do you like it?"

She was an interesting-looking young New York chaperone, but Linton saw that she had the hard, sharp look about the eyes that is bound to come, he guessed, when a woman thinks a good deal about being "a leader;"—and she was automatically put ting the young man at his ease.

Linton did not like people to put him at his ease, but he answered that he enjoyed some things about his work, and that he