A certain story in the morning paper arrested her attention, and she reread it with flushed face and tightening lips. It was well done, as newspaper stories go, this account of a lurid night on Broadway which wound up in a crescendo of brilliance with the flooring of a policeman. No names were mentioned, but the initiated who read between the lines knew that only one man could have pulled off the stunt and gotten by with it.
"For goodness' sake, Eth, aren't you ever going to finish? You'll waste the whole afternoon over that old paper!"
Young Charlie had bolted his luncheon and waited impatiently in a deep window-seat overlooking the park. His sister laid down the paper with a sigh.
"Are the horses ready?" She asked the question in a dull, listless tone, so unlike her usual self that even Charlie noticed.
"Gee! You don't seem very keen about it. And look what a day! You look like you were going to a funeral."
Before the girl could reply he turned again to the window: "Look, a taxi is stopping and somebody is getting out. Oh, it's Bill Carmody! Ain't he a crackerjack, though? Say, Eth, why don't you marry Bill? He's just crazy about you—everybody says so, and——"
"Charlie!" The word was jerked out hysterically, and the boy was puzzled at the crimson of her face.
"Well, I don't care, it's so! And then I'd be a brother-in-law to Bill Carmody! Why, he can lick everybody down to the gym. He put on the gloves with me once," he boasted, swelling visibly, "just sparring, you know; but he promised to teach me the game. And football! There never was a half-back like Bill Carmody! Why he——"
"Do hush! He might hear you. Run along, now. You ride on and I will overtake you. I—I must see Mr. Carmody alone."
"Mr. Carmody! So you two have had a scrap! Well, if I was a girl, and Bill Carmody wanted to marry me, you bet, I'd marry him before he got a chance to change his mind. You bet, when I grow up I'm going to be just like him—so there!"