Page:Tales of the Jazz Age.djvu/119

 "I'm a li'l' stewed, Edith."

"Why, Peter, you're a peach, you are! Don't you think it's a bum way of doing&mdash;when you're with me?"

Then she smiled unwillingly, for he was looking at her with owlish sentimentality varied with a silly spasmodic smile.

"Darlin' Edith," he began earnestly, "you know I love you, don't you?"

"You tell it well."

"I love you&mdash;and I merely wanted you to kiss me," he added sadly.

His embarrassment, his shame, were both gone. She was a mos' beautiful girl in whole worl'. Mos' beautiful eyes, like stars above. He wanted to 'pologize&mdash;firs', for presuming try to kiss her; second, for drinking&mdash;but he'd been so discouraged 'cause he had thought she was mad at him&mdash;&mdash;

The red-fat man cut in, and looking up at Edith smiled radiantly.

"Did you bring any one?" she asked.

No. The red-fat man was a stag.

"Well, would you mind&mdash;would it be an awful bother for you to&mdash;to take me home to-night?" (this extreme diffidence was a charming affectation on Edith's part&mdash;she knew that the red-fat man would immediately dissolve into a paroxysm of delight).

"Bother? Why, good Lord, I'd be darn glad to! You know I'd be darn glad to."

"Thanks loads! You're awfully sweet."

She glanced at her wrist-watch. It was half-past one. And, as she said "half-past one" to herself, it floated vaguely into her mind that her brother had told her at luncheon that he worked in the office of his newspaper until after one-thirty every evening.

Edith turned suddenly to her current partner.