Page:The Breath of Scandal (1922).djvu/49

 Gregg went downstairs where he found the girls in their coats. "If we really want to dance, we'd better go over right away," Marjorie said. "It's at the club, but everybody will be there to-night and the floor will be perfectly impossible pretty soon."

"I'll take you and Bill over," Gregg offered Marjorie.

"Oh, Fred Vane's room for us in his machine."

"I'll take my bus, anyway," Gregg insisted. "I've not too much dope in the radiator; it needs heating up."

He wanted his car with him this night; so he took Marjorie and Billy in with him.

As other cars crowded the road, Gregg had to halt in the avenue when he came from the Hale's driveway, and Marjorie bent forward beside him and looked back at the lighted windows of her home beyond the black boughs of the trees, and with the yellow glow on the snow. The night had cleared to crisp, still winter, with stars glinting in the deep blue above the white roof; and it all made a picture of peace and contentment, such as children form in their first-heard poems of home life, and see in their pictures of a happy family home.

"I love that place," Marjorie whispered impulsively.

"It's a wonderful home, Marjorie," Billy agreed emotionally.

Gregg took out his cigarette case. "Mind if I smoke?"

Marjorie straightened. "Of course not; give me one."

"Have one, Bill?" Gregg offered.

"No," Billy refused, emphatically.