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JOAN AND TWO MEN The girl sat on the side of her bed, swinging her legs and thinking deeply, with a very worried expression on her interesting face. She was not exactly pretty, but much more arresting than many prettier people. If seen in her clothes?including shoes and stockings?she was tall and very slight, with red hair and golden-brown eyes and the creamy skin inclined to freckle that usually goes with that type. She had just returned from a dance and had evidently brought back with her mitch food for reflection. The burden of her thoughts ran somewhat thus: "1 like the man and he has tons of money, and if only one could arrange to live with him on nice, friendly terms without unnecessary love-making it wouldn't matter his being more like a billy goat than a man, and I shouldn't have so much minded marrying him. But now I'm afraid I really couldn't. I should always be wishing he was Hughie, and that wouldn't be moral. Would it? Nor quite fair to him either perhaps. Hughie is the greatest difficulty, because if I wasn't in love with him 1 don't think my conscience need have pricked me for not being properly in love with Mr. Tudor. Men with handy legs and goat-like boards can't expect their "wives to he wildly in love with them. Now can they ? "You can respect a goatee l>eard and deeply sympathize with bandy legs, but they never could inspire in you 'a purple passion scarcely holy,' and you could never, never kiss them ?I mean him?of your own accord. Hut oh, why must I marry at all just yet? "How on earth am 1 going to make up my mitid ? I know what I shall do. Write to Hughie and ask him to come here tomorrow to help me to decide." Next morning a note was dispatched to Captain Hugh (lore, Irish Guards, Chelsea barracks, and at 4 :30 p. m. .Joan was in the drawingroom waiting to receive him, garbed in softest white?red-haired women should always wear white or black? and looking extremely fetching. Presently Captain Gore was announced, and after the usual greetings started off in rather prim style. "1 got your note, Miss Verney. and have as you see hastened to obey your summons." "Oh, thank you so much for coming! I hope it didn't inconvenience you awfully. Hut you've to come down olT your stills. Call me Joan just for the occasion, and help me to decide a most aw full v momentous question. 1 shall call you Hughie, too, nnd shall try to think you arc a young divine or Christian brother or something in the professional advisory line so as to excuse my sending for you." "Rut, my dear little girl, why bother nhout any excuse? 1 was, as you very well know, only loo delighted at the opportunity. But," not taking her seriously, "nothing I hope is going to interfere with your coming down to the club on Sunday. We will have a jolly time. First the drive down?and, by the way, you must sit in front of ine?then after lunch I will punt you up to Bray away from 'the madding crowd,' and we will laze and laze and laze, and I shall tell you a story which though it has l>een told hundreds of times before?" "By you, flughie?" "?Is," unheeding the interruption except by a guilty look, "nevertheless always interesting when told by the right i^rson." "Are you sure it would interest, me, Hughie, and that you are the right person to tell it?" ?> en, i nope devoutly it would and that I am. And, sweetheart, Why need we wait till tomorrow, I mean Sunday? Let me tell it to you now." "On no account, Hughie; it might be fatal to a sensible decision if you allowed yourself, or I allowed you, bo become sentimental. And I'm not ure that I like sentiment on the river either. There is such an ait an odor of low license?you needn't laugh, I've heard father use the term in talking of licensed house# where people drink too much, and it eems to me just as appropriate foi those kind of people in punts whr lriss and cuddle and behave in i manner, to quote Mrs. Gamp, 'to< brazen for words.' It makea on< burn to the bone, and you neve know where to look, though the; don't mind what you see and, a mother saya, 'glory in their shame. But we must get back to our mut | ton; and, Hughie, you're got to ; muster all the wisdom and cupidity you possess and leave sentiment entirely out of the question." "Well, for goodness' sake let us worry it now and get it over whatever it is, and then we can enjov our ; tea." "Well, firstly," Joan said, "would I you mind Mr. Tudor coming with us?" "Why, certainly I should mind. Ami why in the name of everything that's sensible should you want to cart that ass down for to be getting in everybody's way?" I "He's not an ass, Hughie, and J | assure you he can be quite giddy and i festive. And you see it's like this"? i with a little saintlike sigh of resignation?"I may he engaged to him j l>y Sunday, and that's what I want you to help me to decide ahout." j "Well, of all the acts of coolness I j ever heard of this takes the hiscuit : ?to lure me here to advise you as , to marrying another man." "But why this outburst, Hughie? I thought you liked me." "0, did you, indeed? Well, then, , you were mistaken, for I have no liking for you, and I should have nothj ing but hatred and contempt if you i were to marry that blighter, or any! body else." "But, Hughie, dear, you don't want me to be an old maid, do you ?" "No; I want you to marry me as you gave me reason to suppose you would." "Oh, Hughie, you must have been dreaming, then, or I must have been i drowsing or drinking or something, for how could you support me and j dress me and amuse me? You have only got enough for your own needs, and I've got nothing, but heaps and heaps of neinls, and I do so love 'purple and fine linen.' Hughie, dear, 1 am greedy, too, and love nice 1 out-of-season goodies and sparkling wines and Ufllies and things. Of course you know I would a hundred times rather marry you than Mr. Tudor, but he is quite a decent |>erson, and I am, in fact, quite fond ot I him. And just think. Hughie, of all U..J.. I > : ~ t 1-- i lit hut uhciv i mm hocks i coma navo 1 i and the scrummy things I could do and the frantic envy I could arouse i in the breasts of my dearest foes, and the way I could strut and patronize and snub people who had been j horrid to me, and 1 could he so nice to my friends who gave me good sul, vice like you, Hughie. They could come in their seores and scores to borrow from me because I should get father to see that Mr. Tudor made me a huge allowance, even enough j for that, and. Hughie, you must see 1 surely that it would la1 simply a splendid match for me. Hut, Hughie," so softly and cooinglv, "what would you do with an extravI ag&nt, ungodly wife like me if I i ; were to decline this brilliant alliance and marry you instead?" "I should love and cherish her and sail away with her to some country where 1 could labor and live for her, and I would make her as happy as the happiest woman in the whole world. "Oh, Hughie, what fun; and you are a darling! And I may tell you now that I was only piling on the agony alsuit my extravagance and greed and general odiousnegs just to put things Iwfore you and 'cos it j seemed only fair to give Mr. Tudor's , proposal every chance; hut, honestly, j I don't believe I should mind n bit being poor with you and, after all, it 1 is one's own affair chiefly who one marries, so I just will inarrv you, i j Hughie," jumping into his out- | 'stretched arms. "But, snakes alive! 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