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 6 THE RISE AND FALL OF FLORRIE WEISSMAN

proved that she was still the old Florrie after all.

The old Florrie. That made her think. She would be twenty-five in October. This was May. Twenty-four. Young enough, as a matter of fact, yet when judged by the standards of West End Avenue and Eighty-sixth Street, not so very young for a bride. But what a romantic bride! What a stroke of genius on her part! She remembered vaguely that some Frenchman—Napo- leon, she thought—had put over some- thing wonderful once and they had called it a coup d’état—her history teacher in high school had put so much emphasis on it that it stayed even in her head.

CHAPTER II

Not much history had stayed in her head those days. There was no time for such uninteresting things. Not when the telephone rang every five minutes of the day and night with some boy pleading to make a date, or some girl begging for the privilege of taking to lunch or the theatre. Florrie was an extremely popular girl. There was every reason why she should be. In the first place she had beauty, real beauty. Her hair was brown at that time, a lovely chestnut shade, and she had not yet begun to have it waved every week. That was before the day of built-out coiffure and pulled-out eyebrows. Florrie had a good com- plexion, too, and spent much time out- doors, so she used rouge only at night. Her eyes were long and narrow and black, oriental in shape and color, and she had a small, delicate mouth and chin. In those days she was slim, though her curves gave promise. Altogether she was lovely. And she knew it.

In the second place, she was wealthy and generous. Ben Weissman, her father, was the vice-president of the Columbine Blouse Company, one of the largest waist manufacturing houses in America. Florenze, who at the age of fourteen had taken the C out of her

name and put in the Z so it could go that way on her graduation program, had a big allowance, charge accounts in every store, and a car of her own, which she drove exceedingly well. She gave many parties, teas, luncheons, dinners, and it brought her a feeling of queenliness to spend lavishly.

Florrie’s gifts were always more ex- pensive than anyone else’s, and her parties were always more elaborate. She was the ruling spirit of the gay young West End Avenue set with which she traveled. The girls loved her and were afraid of her. She had a devastating gift of crude sarcasm and a rather bad temper, neither of which she made any effort to control. In fact, she rather prided herself on both, the former in particular, and felt that it was a symbol of her power. The boys, too, were simply crazy about her. She was so lively, so spirited, besides being pretty and well dressed and wealthy. It was a triumph to be seen at a football game with Florrie If you were her escort to one of the periodic dances given by the fraternities and clubs of the set, you were the luckiest boy in the room.

"Everybody said that Florrie would be married by the time she was eighteen. Even the girls accepted it as a foregone conclusion, and it was an indication of Florrie’s power that they weren’t even jealous. But Florrie said she wasn’t in a hurry. She was having a good time and her requirements were high. Any man she married would have to have a lot of money.

“You know my father isn’t going to give me a cent when I get married,” she once told the girls of Delta Sigma, the sorority to which she belonged. It was a very exclusive sorority and when 1t was founded Vera Kaufman said she thought no girls should be allowed to join whose fathers worked for anyone else. But Florrie was very democratic and thought that would be unfair. She expressed herself quite plainly to Vera.

“Who in the devil do you think you are, anyway ?” she said, left hand on her