Page:To-morrow Morning (1927).pdf/176

 ruffled their pink and white feathers and grunted like pigs.

"My great-aunt has a parrot like that one over there."

"What did you say?"

"What? I don't know what I said."

Then the old man went out.

"God, Evelyn! Kiss me"

The flowers had faded. They never lasted when the gas log was lit. Evelyn had saved the best tulips, although their edges were tightly rolled and their color had gone dead. In a gold-lace-collared green glass vase belonging to the apartment they made a centerpiece for the painful dinner, lighted by electric lights glaring in frosted glass shades like bathroom lamps, for the candlesticks were packed. Clara dragged around the table, offering slanted dishes with a lax hand, but no one ate much, and more than once tears stung into the women's eyes or Joe flushed darkly from the low-voiced, well-bred, wounding conversation. When dinner was over Mrs. Thorne said good night almost inaudibly through barely moving lips, and went to her room.

"You mustn't mind mother, Joe; she has a bad headache. And she's worried so much and so long about being poor, her one idea for me is to feel that I'm safely married to some one with plenty of money. You see, she doesn't really know you."