"I suppose it was common
gossip that Nita and Sprague were lovers, and I was the only one she
fooled!... My God! To think all of you would stand by and let me _marry_
her--a cheap little gold-digger from Broadway, living with a cheap
four-flusher she couldn't get along without and had to send for--"
"Did you--want to kill her, Ralph?" Penny whispered, touching one of his
knotted fists with a trembling hand.
"Kill her?... Good Lord, _no_!" the boy flung at her violently. "I'm not
such an ass as that! You girls are all alike! Polly had so little sense
as to think I'd want to kill Nita and Sprague both! She couldn't see,
and neither could Clive, that all I wanted was to get away from
everybody and get so drunk I could forget what a fool I'd been--"
"What _did_ you do, Ralph?" Penny asked urgently.
"Why, I got drunk, of course," the boy answered, as if surprised at her
persistence. "Darling, you wouldn't believe me if I told you how much
rot-gut Scotch it took to put me under, but that filthy bootlegging
hotel clerk would have charged me twice what he did for the stuff if he
had known how much good it would do me."
"Hotel?" Penny snatched at the vital word. "Where did you go to get
drunk, Ralph?"
"I never realized before you had so much curiosity, honey," the boy
grinned at her.
Pages:
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204