Page:Weird Tales volume 11 number 02.pdf/6



VONNE has the devil’s own taste for the odd and curious, so that a gift truly pleasing to her involves an assault on my imagination more than on the bankroll. And, as usual, the day following was our wedding anniversary; time had once again slipped up on me, and I was totally unprepared to pay the day its honors in the shape of jade necklaces, Japanese lacquer, or other bit of grotesque loveliness wherewith she loved to adorn her person or our already crowded apartment. Heaven help us, but why couldn’t the girl let a diamond tiara or a bucket of Burmese sapphires suffice, instead of craving outlandish trifles the pursuit of which always drives me at a pace just three jumps ahead of the madhouse?

I prowled about, stalking the perfect gift which would write another chapter on how to be happy with a woman of quaint tastes, and envying those fortunate lads whose problems were solved with cobra-skin shoes, or two ounces of silk and lace, or a new coupé. Despair prowled with me.

And then——

I never did know what heaven-sent hunch prompted me to enter that second-hand furniture store in whose farthest comer I recognized at a glance the perfect gift for Yvonne. Anyway, the longer I looked, the better I liked it. What a table! Long, narrow, low; its outlandish, foreign 149