New-York tribune., 1920-10-03


to see you with''
Pat on his words a page in the act
of passing his chair cried name.
"Mr Case. Mr.. Walter Case"
"Here," said Dorothy's man
sharply. "Don't go on believing.
Have you got my eyeglasses for
me?"
With half her mind or there
abouts, she noted as different from
anything she had seen in him yet his
impatience-it came almost to
roughness-with the boy; as if the
sound of his own name had irritated
him. She was aware, too, not quite
pleasantly, of the difference in his
looks---in the way he seemed to be
taking her in, now that those indis-
pensable eyeglasses were once mora
astride his nose.
The reason neither of these items
got her full attention was chat the
sound Of the mans name, as uttered
by the page, had preempted it. She
knew that name. She'd more than
merely heard 1t. She had definite
association tucked away with it
somewhere.
Evidently he had got around at
last to noting her preoccupation, be-
cause he said with q suddenness that
almost made her jump, What is it?
Have you just remembered some
thing"
She said: "No, but I was trying
to. 1t seems as if I had heard your
name somewhere"
She noted with surprise that he
shrank at that - almost literally
shrank. The buoyancy he'd got
along with his eyeglasses seemed
somehow to have debated out of him.
He gave a little monosyl able laugh
If that's an admissible way of de-
scribing it--said, at doesn't matter
If you've forgotten pulled his chair
around facing her and sat down
in it.
Here we are" he went on. "You
admit you've nothing to do, and
have less just now than anybody in
Chicago. Shall we try doing it to-
gether?' He felt for his missing
watch, then looked around at the
clock. "How about The White Par
rot to begin with? haven't danced
in two years-forgotten how, but we
can look on"
Dorothy missed everything he said
after the words white Parrot" be-
cause those words turned up her
missing association with his name.
THAT first adventure of hers
4 here in Chicago more than
three months ago with Bob was
not, after all, the wholly episode
thing she had supposed it to be.
Bob, in canvassing the possibilities
of the tea dance after the matinee,
had rejected The White Parrot for
reasons not stated. So The White
Parrot brought up Bob and the talk
they had had across their tiny table
in the place they did go to--about
the girl Bob was in love with-the
girl whose picture was in his watch.
Her name was Enid Case, and she
had no proper parents, because they
had quarreled and were getting a
divorce, and Enid was living with a
wicked old grandmother. "Her
fathers Walter Case," Bob had
thrown in. II suppose you may
have heard of him. He's in the pa
pers every now and then"
This was all, but it was quite
enough. He was the father of one
OF the incest girls there was-a nice
enough girl to be in love with Bob
and engaged to him. And, whatever
his faults, he couldn't possibly be
81 think that would be awfully
nlce," she said with sudden smile.
I'D like to do it very much"
But she didn't like The White
Parrot. 1t began being unaccount-
ably unpleasant, vaguely alarming,
the moment they got inside the
street doors.
The music was wild, hurried, stri-
dent. 1t filled the room too full.
And it was good, which made it
worse. Like the decorations, it re-
vealed a deliberate intent, which
struck Dorothy, though she couldn't
formulate it, as formidable; as. to
use girls word, horrid.
Once seated, she felt for q moment
a little less uncomfortable. Another
waiter stood at her elbow with a pad
and pencil. She knew what to say
now-she had been through this once