“No, it doesn’t feel a bit like that, Sadie. I don’t know just how to explain it––really it isn’t unpleasant at all.”
“Why, Helen! And you engaged and going to elo”–––
“Hush, Sadie, you mustn’t say that in here. Somebody might––but I positively cannot keep my eyes down another moment. I’m”–––
Then splash!
A vicious little jab of the spoon and there followed a disastrous geyser––a grapefruit geyser.
With a smothered little cry of pain Helen’s eyes shut tight and she groped for her napkin. And to make a good job of it the Fates dragged in at that moment Helen’s guardian aunt, the tall and statuesque Mrs. Elvira Burton of Omaha, Neb.
The young man who had failed so signally in what was perhaps his maiden effort at hypnotism viciously seized all the change the waiter proffered on the little silver tray, flung it back with a snarl, got up and stamped out of the room.
He was a mighty good looking chap, smartly attired, and if you care for details, he wore a heliotrope scarf in which there gleamed a superb black pearl for which he had paid a superb price.
“Can you beat it!” he muttered as he climbed the stairs to the lobby and mingled with the throng that 11 stood about in stiff groups, idly chattering and looking as if they bored one another to the verge of desperation.
“Can you beat it!” he exclaimed again, fairly biting off the words.