The Card, a Story of Adventure in the Five Towns

ould be begun. Denry learned this as soon as he emerged, effulgent, from the gentlemen's cloak-room into the broad red-carpeted corridor which runs from end to end of the ground-floor of the Town Ha

flannel-washer; but universal white kid gloves constitute a democracy, and Shi

t of the Swetnam bo

said Denry, with

st time, and it is not paid for, either!" But it was not so. And the reason was that the entire population of the Town Hall was heartily engaged in pretending that never in its life had it been seen after seven o'clock of a night apart from a dress-suit. Denry obser

ooned with flowers. The thrill of being magnificent seized him, and he was drenched in a vast desire to be truly magnificent himself. He dreamt of magnificence and boot-brushes kept sticking out of this dream like black mud out of snow. In his reverie he l

orridor, and the sublimes

fraid of her, as though she was recovering from influenza and they feared to catch it. She had precisely the same high voice, and precisely the same efficient smile, as she had employed to Denry, and these instruments worked marvels on aldermen; they were as melting as salt on snow. The Countess disappeared upstairs in a cloud of shrill apologies and trailing

Jock!"

!" said the o

pening?" Denry i

ut the antics of one o

n white. Except that nothing glittered in her hair, she looked the very e

waltz?" Denry b

with chilliness. "I suppose you've been sta

he said. "I didn't

't you look at

t one," he

take a programme

cuttingly, somewhat in he

he waltz?" he sugg

continued her soli

uation, and equal to the style of his suit. But he could not. In a moment he

wicked crime for her, she could ne

ight and by name for a dance. (Ruth had taught him how to ask.) Not one of them had a dance left. Several looked at

e wealthiest manufacturer of his years (barely twenty-four) in the Five Towns. Also Shillitoe,

aldermen. Possibly she was getting her breath; possibly nobody had had the pluck to ask her. Anyhow, she seemed to be stranded there, on a beach of aldermen. Very wisely she had brought with her no members o

st out. He had hitherto said nothing in the group, an

it. It's a free cou

for two pins!

entful of his presence there. Harold Etches

er you don't," said

enry, very quickly, and