You know what this
newspaper game is for a woman. It doesn't grow easier as
she grows older and tireder."
"Oh, cut out the melodrama, Dawn," sneered Peter.
"Have either of you fellows the makin's about you?
Thanks. I'm famished for a smoke."
The worrying words of ten years ago rose
automatically to my lips. "Aren't you smoking too much,
Peter?" The tone was that of a harassed wife.
Peter stared. Then he laughed his short, mirthless
little laugh. "By Jove! Dawn, I believe you're as much
my wife now as you were ten years ago. I always said,
you know, that you would have become a first-class nagger
if you hadn't had such a keen sense of humor. That saved
you." He turned his mocking eyes to Von Gerhard.
"Doesn't it beat the devil, how these good women stick to
a man, once they're married! There's a certain dog-like
devotion about it that's touching."
There was a dreadful little silence. For the first
time in my knowledge of him I saw a hot, painful red
dyeing Blackie's sallow face. His eyes had a menace in
their depths. Then, very quietly, Von Gerhard stepped
forward and stopped directly before me.
"Dawn," he said, very softly and gently, "I retract
my statement of an hour ago.
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