“How do you know?”
“I’ve made some inquiries. He’s dropped the thing.”
“Are you sure?”
“Oh, yes. He’s not so thick-skinned as he looks. That story wouldn’t look well in print, you know.”
With an outburst of friendship, Dicky threw his arms around Crabb’s shoulders and gave him a bear hug.
“I’ll never forget it, Mort, never! You’re the salt of the earth——”
“There, there, Dicky. Salt should be taken in pinches, not by the spoonful, and you’ve mussed my cravat! Be off with you and don’t come back here until matrimony has sobered you into a proper sense of your new responsibilities to your Creator.”
From the window of his apartment Crabb watched Dicky’s taxi spin up the avenue in the direction of the modest boarding-house which sheltered the waiting bride, then turned with a heavy sigh and rang for McFee. Love like that never comes to the very rich. He, Mortimer Crabb, was not a sentient being, but only a chattel, an animated bank account upon which designing matrons cast envious eyes and for which ambitious daughters laid their pretty snares. No, love like that was not for him—or ever would be, it seemed.
His toilet made, Crabb strolled out for the air, wondering as he often did how the people on the street could smile their way through life, while he——