“Well, listen to Mister Innocent—never heard about instalment plans, and bargain hunting, and getting things cheap ’cause you know the head buyer.”
“Oh, even at that it’s the world’s eighth wonder to me,” he replied. “I’m afraid to take you any place to-night. Everybody I know’ll be trying to horn in on us.”
“Why, I thought competition was your middle name,” she said, brightly.
“No, it’s only an alias—too much of it’s as bad as too little,” he answered. “Anyway, don’t you get tired of scrimping and putting yourself out for clothes all the time?”
“What ’f I do?” she asked.
“Well, you know what I told you time before last,” he said. “I’ll pay all the bills and like it, any time you’re ready. You said you were going to think it over—remember?”
“Yes, I do,” she replied, soberly. “I’ll talk to you about it later on to-night. And don’t call a cab, Joe. Let’s walk a few blocks, for a change. You always act like you hated to use your legs.”
“I use ’em enough behind the lights to make up for all the riding I do,” he answered, amused.
They strolled over to Broadway, and were silent most of the time, save for commenting on some of the people striding past them. When they reached the corner of Broadway and one of the Forties, he said: “Say, Blanche, a friend of mine, Jack Donovan, ’s pulling a party to-night in his place. There’ll be two ’r three chorines from the Passing Gaieties show, and a couple of respectable crooks—um, I mean bootleggers—that kind of thing. I said I’d be up about eleven-thirty but I won’t go if you don’t want to. We could drop in at The Golden Mill and kill time until then.”
“Sure I’ll come, ’f it’s not going to be too wild,” she replied. “I never was much on those parties where they try to pass you around like you was a dish of ice cream.”