They had not had their breakfast, but they forgot it. A dusky waiter went by chanting his "Lass call for breakfuss in Rining Rar." He chanted it thrice in their ears, but they never heard. Marjorie was gloating over the discomfiture of the odious creature who had dared to precede her in the acquaintance of her husband-to-be. The husband-to-be was miserably wishing that he had to face a tribe of bolo-brandishing Moros, instead of this trivial girl whom he had looked upon when her cheeks were red.
CHAPTER XXXV
MR. AND MRS. LITTLE JIMMIE
Mrs. Sammy Whitcomb had longed for the sweet privilege of squaring matters with Mrs. Jimmie Wellington. Sneers and back-biting, shrugs and shudders of contempt were poor compensation for the ever-vivid fact that Mrs. Wellington had proved attractive to her Sammy while Mrs. Wellington's Jimmie never looked at Mrs. Whitcomb. Or if he did, his eyes had been so blurred that he had seen two of her—and avoided both.
Yesterday she had overheard Jimmie vow sobriety. To-day his shining morning face showed that he had kept his word. She could hardly wait to begin the flirtation which, she trusted, would render Mrs. Wellington helplessly furious for six long Reno months.
The Divorce Drummer interposed and held Jimmie prisoner for a time, but as soon as Mr. Baumann released him, Mrs. Whitcomb apprehended him. With a smile that beckoned and with eyes that went out like far-cast fishhooks, she drew Leviathan into her net.
She reeled him in and he plounced in the seat opposite. What she took for bashfulness was reluctance. To add the last charm to her success, Mrs. Wellington arrived to see it. Mrs. Whitcomb saw the lonely Ashton rise and offer her the seat facing him. Mrs. Wellington took it and sat down with the back of her head so close to the back of Mr. Wellington's head that the feather in her hat tickled his neck.
Jimmie Wellington had seen his wife pass by. To his sober eyes she was a fine sight as she moved up the aisle. In his alcohol-emancipated mind the keen sense of wrong endured that had driven him forth to Reno began to lose its edge. His own soul appealed from Jimmie drunk to Jimmie sober. The appellate judge began to reverse the lower court's decision, point by point.
He felt a sudden recrudescence of jealousy as he heard Ashton's voice unctuously, flirtatiously offering his wife hospitality. He wanted to trounce Ashton. But what right had he to defend from gallantry the woman he was about to forswear before the world? Jimmie's soul was in turmoil, and Mrs. Whitcomb's pretty face and alluring smile only annoyed him.
She had made several gracious speeches before he quite comprehended any of them. Then he realized that she was saying: "I'm so glad you're going to stop at Reno, Mr. Wellington."
"Thank you. So am I," he mumbled, trying to look interested and wishing that his wife's plume would not tickle his neck.