San Antonio light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1911-1993, 1923-02-11

| golos face, as he bowed before her,
was impressive, inscrutable.
But, Ssh" said Mary.
Nonsense! Doesn't understand a
word"
Mary danced the next dance with
him. They danced wordlessly until the
dance was half over. Then, abruptly,
Mary said in English, whats your
name"
He said, in French, "Pardon?
SO, whats your name" said Mary,
in French this time.
The gigolo with the beautiful man.
ners hesitated longer than really beau
tiful manners should permit. But fl
nally, "Je m'appelle Gideon Gore" He
pronounced it in his most nasal, per-
feet Paris French. 1t didn't sound even
remotely like Gideon Cory.
'My names Hubbell," said Mary, in
her pretty fair French. Mary Hubbell.
1 came from little town called Win
nebago."
The Gore eyebrow expressed polite
| dlstlnterestedneSs.
That's in Wisconsin," continued
Mary, land / love it,
"Naturellement," agreed the gisolo,
stiffly.
They finished the dance without fur
Their conversation. Mrs. Hubbell had
the next dance. Mary the next. They
spent the afternoon dancing, until din
ner time. Orson Us fee, as he handed
it TO the gigolo, was the kind that
mounted grandly into dollars instead Of
mere francs. The gigolo's face, as he
took it, was not more inscrutable than
Mary's as she watched him take it.
From that afternoon, throughout the
next two weeks, il any girl as thor
oughly fine as Mary Hubbell could be
said TO run after any man, Mary ran
after that gigolo. At the same time one
could almost have said that he tried to
avoid her. Mary took a course of tango
lessons, and urged her mother to do the
same. Even Orson J. noticed it.
Look here" he said, in kindly pro-
test. Aren't YOU getting pretty thick
with this iigger?"
Sociological study, Dad. I'm all
right"
"Yeh, you're all right. But how
about him."
He's all right, too"
The gigoIo resisted Mary's unmaiden-
| ly advances, and yet, when he was with
her, he seemed sometimes to forget to
| look somber and blank and remote. They
seemed to have a lot to say to each
other. Many talked about America n
good deal. About her home town
and big elms and naples and oaks in
the yard = the Fox River valley
Middle West Normal avenue
/ Cass street Fox river paper
mills ."
She talked in French and English.
| The gigolo confessed, one day, to un-
Outstanding some English, though he
seemed to speak none. After that Mary
when very much in earnest, or when
enthusiastic, spoke in her native tongue
altogether. She claimed an intense in
terest in European after-war conditions,
in reconstruction, in the attitude to-
ward life of those millions of young
men who had actually participated inI
the conflict. She asked questions that
might have been considered impertin-
ent, not TO say nervy.
"Now you" she said, brutally, "are
person of some education, refinement
and background. Yet you are content
to dance around in these-these-well,
back home a chap might wash dishes
in cheap restaurant or run an eleva-
tor in an East Side New York loft
| building, but he'd never
A very faint dull red crept suddenly
over the pallor of the gigolO's face. They
were sitting out on a bench on the
promenade, facing the ocean lin direct
defiance on Mary's part of all rules
of conduct of respectable girls toward
gigolOs). Mary Hubbell had said rather
brusque things before. But now, for
| mn Hnfnn1nH
himself family.
For u.s." he replied in his exquisite
French, "it is finished. For us there
is nothing. This generation, it is no
good. ! am no good. They are no
good" He waved a hand in q gesture
that included the promenaders, the mu-
siicans in the cafes. the dancers, the
crowds eating and drinking at the lit
tie tables lining the walk.
What rot" said Mary Hubbell,
briskly. They. probably said exactly
the same thing in Asia after Alexander
had got through with 'em. suppose
there was such dancing and general
deyilment in Macedonia that every one
| said the younger generation had gone
| to the d. IS since the war, and the world
would never amount TO anything again.
But it seemed to pick up, didn't it?"
The boy turned and looked at her
| Squarely for the first time, his eyes
meeting hers. Mary looked at him.
She even swayed toward him a little,
her lips parted. There was about her
a breathlessness, an expectancy. Sol
they sat for a moment, and between
them the air was electric, vibrant.
| Then, slowly, he relaxed, sat back,
slumped little on the bench. Over
his face there crept again tine look OF
defeat Of sOmber indifference. At sight
of that look Mary Hubbells jaw set.
She did not look at the gigolo, but out.
across the blue Mediterranean, and
beyond il. Her voice was low and n
little tremulous and she spoke in Eng
| fish only.
TT isn't finished here-here in
| Europe. But it's sick. Back home, in
America, though. it's alive. Alive!
] And growing. wish | could make
you understand what it's like there.
| It's all new. and crude, maybe. and
ugly. but it's so darned healthy and
sort of clean. l love it. l love every
bit of It. j know l sound like a flag
wavcr but ] don't care. | mean IL.
And l know it's sentimental, but I'm
proud Of it. l don't say l don't APP
| preciate the beauty of all this Italy
and France and England and Germany.
But il doesn't get me the way just the
mention of name will get me back
| home This trim. for examplP Why,