Page:MacGrath--The drums of jeopardy.djvu/145

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
The Drums of Jeopardy
135

awful temptation. Somebody to wait on you; heaps of flowers when you wanted them; beautiful gowns and thingummies and furs and limousines. I've often wondered what I should do if I found myself with love and youth on one side and money and attraction on the other. I've always been in straitened circumstances. I never spent a dollar in all my days when I didn't think I ought to have held back three or four cents of it. You can't know, Cutty, what it is to be poor and want beautiful things and good times. Of course I couldn't marry just money. There would have to be some kind of a man to go with it. Someone interesting enough to make me forget sometimes that I'd thrown away a lover for a pocket-book."

"Would you marry me, Kitty?"

"Are you serious?"

"Let's suppose I am."

"No. I couldn't marry you, Cutty. I should always be having my mother's ghost as a rival."

"But supposing I fell in love with you?"

"Then I'd always be doubting your constancy. But what queer talk!"

"Kitty, you're a joy! Lordy, my luck in dropping in to see you yesterday!"

"And a little whippersnapper like me calling a great man like you Cutty!"

"Well, if it embarrasses you, you might switch to papa once in a while."