Page:Stella Dallas, a novel (IA stelladallasnove00prou).pdf/123

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reason Laurel didn't seem to object to Alfred Munn's fondling her was for the sake of a marvelous watch he carried. He used to show it to her if she would come and sit in his lap. Laurel never forgot the wonders of that watch. When she grew up she thought of them whenever she thought of Alfred Munn.

It was a gold watch, big and heavy, and very thick. There was a horse's head engraved on the back of it with a diamond eye that twinkled. His bridle was studded with tiny red stones.

Beneath the horse's head on the inside of the back cover (which Mr. Munn had to pry open with his thick thumb-nail) was a picture of another horse. It was a pure white horse with a lady in short skirts standing on tiptoes on his back!

Underneath the white horse, way, way inside, next to the little gold wheels and blue screw-heads, was another picture. It was a colored picture. It was a picture of a lady with long hair. She had no clothes on at all!

day (and it was that day Stephen had decided to go to New York) he had come upon Stella and Alfred Munn in the corridor of the Milhampton City Club. They had been having lunch there in the ladles' dining-room.

The City Club was strictly a man's club. There was a ladles' dining-room, to be sure, but women did not make a practice of lunching there without