Every Soul Hath Its Song Part 64

He left her and returned a few moments later with a flat, red-covered portfolio. They sought out an unmolested spot and snuggled in a corner of a plush divan in one of the deserted parlors. He drew back the cover and their heads bent low.

At each turn of the pages she breathed her ecstasy and gave out shrills and calls of admiration.

"Oh, Simon, ain't that pink one a beauty! Ain't that skirt the swellest thing you ever seen!"

"That's the Piquette model, girlie. You and all New York will be buyin'

it in another month. Ain't it the selectest little thing ever?"

Her face was rapt. "It's the swellest thing I've ever seen!" she declared.

He turned to another plate.

"Oh-h-h-h-h!" she cried.

"Ain't that a beauty! That there is going to be the biggest hit I've had yet. Watch out for the Phoebe Snow! I've got the original model in my trunks. That cutaway effect can't be beat."

"Oh-h-h-h-h!" she repeated.

They pa.s.sed slowly over the gay-colored plates.

"There's that flame-colored one I'd like to see you in."

"Gee!" she said. "There's some cla.s.s to that."

After a while the book was laid aside and they talked in low, serious tones; occasionally his hand stroked hers.

The afternoon waned; the lobby thinned; the dowagers and their daughters asked for room keys and disappeared for siestas and more mysterious processes; children trailed off to rest; the hot land-breezes, dry and listless, stirred the lace curtains of the parlor--but they remained on the plush divan, rapt as might have been Paolo and Francesca in their romance-imbued arbor.

"How long will you be down here?" she asked.

"As long as you," he replied, not taking his eyes from her face.

"Honest?"

"Sure. I don't have to go in to New York for a week or ten days yet. My season ain't on yet."

She leaned her head against the back of the divan. "All nice things must end," she said, with the 'cello note in her voice.

"Oh, I don't know!" he replied, with what might have been triple significance.

They finally walked toward the elevator, loath to part for the interim of dressing.

That evening they strolled together on the beach until the last lights of the hotel were blinking out. Then they stole into the semi-dark lobby like thieves--but soft-voiced, joyous thieves. A few straggling couples like themselves came in with the same sheepish but bright-eyed hesitancy. At the elevator Miss Blondheim and Mr. Epstein were lingering over good-nights.

The quartette rode up to their respective floors together--the girls regarding each other with shy, happy eyes; the men covering up their self-consciousness with sallies.

"Ain't you ashamed to keep such late hours, Miss Blondheim?" said Mr.

Arnheim.

"I don't see no early-to-bed-early-to-rise medals on none of us," she said, diffidently.

"These thummer rethorts sure ain't no plathe for a minither's thon,"

said Mr. Epstein.

Laughter.

"Remember, Mr. Arnheim, whoever's up first wait in the leather chair opposite the elevator."

"Sure thing, Miss Sternberger."

Her last glance, full of significance, was for Mr. Arnheim. The floor above he also left the elevator, the smile still on his lips.

Left alone, Mr. Epstein turned to Miss Blondheim.

"Good night, dearie," he whispered. "Thweet dreamth."

"Good night, Louie," she replied. "Same to you."

Mr. Arnheim awoke to a scudding rain; his ocean-ward window-sill dripping and a great patch of carpet beneath the window dark and soggy.

Downstairs the lobby buzzed with restrained energies; a few venturesome ones in oils and turned-up collars paced the veranda without.

Mr. Arnheim, in his invariable soft collar and shadow-checked suit, skirted the edge of the crowd in matinal ill humor and deposited his room key at the desk. The clerk gave him in return a folded newspaper and his morning mail.

Mr. Arnheim's morning aspect was undeniable. He suggested too generous use of soap and bay rum, and his eyes had not lost the swollen heaviness that comes with too much or too little sleep. He yawned and seated himself in the heavy leather chair opposite the elevator.

His first letter was unstamped and addressed to him on hotel stationery; the handwriting was an unfamiliar backhand and the inclosure brief:

DEAR MR. ARNHEIM: I am very sorry we could not keep our date, but I got a message and I got to go in on the 7:10 train. Hope to see you when I come back.

Sincerely, MYRA STERNBERGER.

Mr. Arnheim replaced the letter slowly in the envelope. There were two remaining--a communication from a cloak-manufacturing firm and a check from a banking-house. He read them and placed them in his inside coat pocket. Then he settled the back of his neck against the rim of the chair, crossed one leg over the other, rattled his newspaper open, and turned to the stock-market reports.

One week later Mr. Simon Arnheim, a red portfolio under one arm, walked into the mahogany, green-carpeted, soft-lighted establishment of an importing house on Fifth Avenue.

Mrs. S.S. Schlimberg, senior member, greeted him in her third-floor office behind the fitting-rooms.

"Well, well! _Wie geht's_, Arnheim? I thought it was gettin' time for you."

Mr. Arnheim shook hands and settled himself in a chair beside the desk.

"You know you can always depend upon me, madame, to look you up the minnit I get back. Don't I always give you first choice?"

Mrs. Schlimberg weighed a crystal paper-weight up and down in her pudgy, ringed hands. "None of your fancy prices for me this season, Arnheim.

There's too many good things lyin' loose. That's why I got my openin'

a month sooner. I got a designer came in special off her vacation with some good things."

Mr. Arnheim winked. "Schlim, I got some models here to show you that you can't beat. When you see 'em you'll pay any price."