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 up, laughing. "Darling! A lady doesn't show a gentleman her panties, even when she has a new dress!"

"H'm! H'm!" coughed Hartley, trying to cover the unfortunate word.

"Now say good night. No, baby, can't have a cocktail! Ralph, isn't she an angel?"

She went in Effa's arms, kissing an outspread hand to them. Joe watched her go out of the bright room, up the shadowy stairs. He had been an inarticulate poet, an artist dissatisfied with his creative power, aching all his life with things he could not express, until everything was expressed in this little gold and silver daughter.

I must be broad-minded, Hartley told himself, digging into his melon. There have been some very cultured Jews. Mendelssohn—yes, indeed, Mendelssohn. I'll just mention him sometime during the course of the evening. I think that ought to please Mr. Levinson. What other famous Jews were there? "Christ" popped into his head, but he dismissed the thought as sacrilegious. But I hope I can remember not to tell any Hebrew jokes!

"I'm starved, Evelyn," Ralph was saying. "We reached Westlake earlier than I expected, and I tried to get some tea. They sent me to a ghastly place with females dressed as Dutch windmills"

"Goff's."

"My windmill tried her best to get me to take ice cream—at five in the afternoon!"