Page:The Plutocrat (1927).pdf/469

 corduroy were tucked into high light boots of Morocco red leather; and the girl with him had as lively a taste for opera bouffe, the playwright thought. She was small and dark, with short curly black hair; and she wore a long black velvet coat, an embroidered white blouse, black velvet knickerbockers, dark blue silk stockings, and silver-buckled patent-leather slippers with curved high heels. Nevertheless, Ogle admitted that she was highly ornamental.

As he ate his dinner, he was aware that her elderly companion showed a recurrent interest in him: the restless eyes behind the silver spectacles were frequently upon him; and once the girl turned frankly to look at him, as if under the impulse of her friend's mention of him. They rose from their table while Ogle was still seated at his own, and to his surprise they stopped beside him on their way out of the room.

The man bowed genially. "You are an American, I think, sir," he said, and so far as his pronunciation went he might well have been an American himself. "I like to speak to Americans when I have the chance. I once lived several years in the States, most of the time in Rock Island." Then he added, as Laurence had risen, "Please don't let us keep you standing."

Misfortune and suffering are indeed the principal