Page:The Black Cat November 1916.djvu/11

Rh ended up, explosively. "Almost anybody but one of my salesgirls. I won't have it, Frederick,—Anita May Maloney! The name is enough. Sounds like a girl from the Follies."

"Anita May Maloney!" Frederick finally managed to stammer. "Why, poppa, I never saw her."

"What, what?" exclaimed Belford, his puffy-lidded eyes opening wide. Surely Derrington's inference was as plain as the nose on his face, he thought, yet the earnestness of his son's tone made him pause and produced a slight ray of hope. "Never saw her!" he repeated. "Frederick, are you lying to me?"

"Of course not. Why on earth should I lie about it?" answered the young man indignantly. "Poppa, I should think you'd gone crazy."

David studied the matter a moment. "Well, now then, Frederick," he finally said, speaking more mildly. "You come down to the shop tomorrow and see the girl; she's in the jewelry department. She really is handsome, and you may know her under some other name. If you assure me, after you see her tomorrow, that you've never known her, I'll believe you."

Thus did it happen that Frederick Belford entered his father's famous departmental establishment on the following morning and inquired of a floorman the direction to the jewelry section, blushing meanwhile as though he were about to face a battery of beauties, instead of but one. The floorman, not having the remotest idea who the young man was, guided him gently toward the ring counter, winked a facetious aside at the salesgirl there and said:

"Wedding rings, sir? Yes, sir, Miss Maloney will show them to you."

Frederick caught the name, caught the inference, gave one glance at the ravishing young woman before him and fled, his former blushes being as the palest of pink sunsets to the roseate flush that now suffused his burning face. But he had proceeded no farther than the stationery section when he stalked into the arms of the senior Belford himself.

"Well, now then, Frederick, did you see her?" inquired David of his son.

"Of course I saw her," was Frederick's indignant reply as his face assumed its normal hue. "And I give you my word, poppa, I never before set my eyes on the girl."

"Well, then, that's enough," declared Belford, tremendously relieved. "I must have misunderstood Derrington."

"Der—Dorrington!" stammered Frederick, falling into a new pit of embarrassment. "What has he got to do with it?"

"Oh, nothing, nothing," answered Belford. "The old file made a funny wager with me, that's all; said he knew who you would marry within six months, and I thought he hinted pretty strong at its being one of my salesgirls; but the matter's ended now; we won't say any more about it. It was probably one of those stupid jokes Derrington is so fond of cooking up."

So Freddie Belford motored home in a very mixed state of mind and Miss Anita Maloney thought what a fine, manly young fellow he was to show such extreme embarrassment at the mere mention of wedding rings.