The Washington times., 1932-01-05

Chapter IA
Through the underground of
ferns and scrub that surrounded
the little clearing where Imogen
and Laurel we're reclining in the
sun peeped young rabbit.
Hist! Did you hear that
Sound?" After last nights ex-
cess hilarity, Laurel was still
nervous.
"Only a squirrel or bird or
something" responded Imogen
lackadaisically.
"You don't think it was "a
prowler? Sort of a Peeping
Tom?"
"Oh, be YOURSELF"
But mother Said-last night
at her bridge party she over
heard two men discussing YOU
about taking sun baths in the
open with no clothes on &. :"
"Faugh! Those old women
give me a pain in the neck.
To hell with them!"
You don't include Connie, do
you?" Instantly Laurel the
loyal was all prickles.
Nope" Imogen smiled rather
knowingly from one corner Of
her mouth. But don't you ever
fret about beautiful Constance
Oakes being shocked :"
"You mean that She'S-broad-
minded"
"I mean that if she sits in
judgment on us, it's all hooey"
And Imogen smiled again,
with all the worldly knowledge
of Mona Lisa.
Don't be mysterious, I'm.
Sometimes 1 feel I'd like to
shake you."
"Oh, keep your undershirt on
-. even though I'm clad pract1-
cally in sweet nozzings!" She
giggled at her own humor.
you mean-?"
A Fast Set
st mean that the set your
mother travels with step out
themselves pretty high, wide
and handsome! Maybe she
doesn't know the carryings-on
of her dear friend Mrs. Dela-
hunt last spring over in Paris!
And Mrs. Delahunt is fifty If a
day, for all that she's had her
face 'lifted' Why she was lit
every afternoon on champagne
cocktails in the Ritz Hotel, in
the Ladies' Bar, and always ac-
companied by a gigolo."
What exactly is a gigolo,
Im?"
Heavens! Hark at the child,
so young and simple! A gigolo
is a young chap who makes
love to a lady for a quid pro
Quo-for a cash payment"
GOOD NIGHT"
"Well, they don't always say
good night. Depends on the
arrangement"
Go on, I'm. Tell me more.
How extraordinary"
''Not a bit of it, when lady
isn't so young any more, but
feels a kind of a second bloom
ing The gigolo knows that
her husbands 5000 miles away,
and that anyhow she's bit
fed-up on her Tired Business
Man. He knows, too, that it
isn't entirely an urge for Cul-
ture-c apital 9Th a t has
brought her across the Atlantic.
It's the hope of Romance in a
Paris spring, with the Chestnuts
blooming along the boulevards,
and the little brides twitter-
ing. -"
$50 when some other bird
whistles a tune the Old Chest
nuts are responding?"
"You get me, Steve. You're a
bright child, Laurel"
Gay Old Girls
"But, Imogen, these quite old
women why should they be-
have SOP"
Because they feel it's the
last call to the dining-car of
shall we call it a Grand
Passion?"
ugh! It's disgusting"
mot a bit Of it. Be liberal
minded. If it weren't for the
gay and game ladies who flock
there, Paris wouldn't be one
tenth as prosperous! Apart from
the jazz and the gigoloS, think
what the beauty parlors and the
wig makers rake in from the
female seekers of 'rejuvenation!
And the helluva lot of money
handed to the plastic surgeons
for the face liftings'! To the
American female mind, Paris
stands for two things .. Clothes
=. and NaughtineSS."
"You just called it Romance?"
'Tush! The same thing. Don't
be antedeluvian!"
$50 you think the older crowd
have no right to criticise us
young ones?"
Nope. Let the female 10th
arios pick on themselves first!"
Laurels mind winged to her
mother, Constance.
Only this morning hadn't Con-
ME been talking wistfully, ques-
tioningly, about Romance =?
Dad was quite middle-aged,
and rubicund, and fat. Was it
possible that Connie. too, wanted
to wander in new pastures =?
The very thought of such a
thing was dreadful.
But
Connie was a close friend of
Mrs. Delanunt's, the lady who
had behaved so scandalously