It IS raw and
nasty today, isn't it? I think the Mallons are coming out in an
open car. Isn't it too bad?"
"Bad for the curls," he drawled. "Mind if I smoke?"
"Certainly not. Don't you know that by this time?"
He had drawn a chair up beside hers. Her reply afforded him a very
definite sense of elation.
"It seems to me that the world is getting to be a rather heavenly
place to live in," he said, and there was a trace of real feeling
in his voice. "You don't mind my saying it's entirely due to you,
do you?"
"Not in the least," she said calmly. "Charlie Webster once paraphrased
a time-honoured saying. He said 'In the fall an old man's fancy
slightly turns to thoughts of comfort.' I sha'n't deprive my fireplace
and my big armchair of their just due by believing a word of what
you say."
He tossed the match into the fire, drew in a deep breath of smoke,
settled himself comfortably in the chair before exhaling, and then
remarked:
"But I don't happen to be an old man. I happen to be a rather young
one,--and a very truthful one to boot."
"Do you always tell the truth?"
He grinned. "More or less always," was his reply. "I never lie in
October."
"And the other eleven months of the year?"
"Oh, I merely change the wording. In July I say 'I never lie in
July,'--and so on throughout the twelve-month. I don't slight a
single month.
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