Denry the Audacious
uld 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 Hal
mparable flannel-washer; but universal white kid gloves constitute a democracy, an
of the Sweetnam boy
" said Denry with
t 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 observe
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, boot-brushes kept sticking out of this dream like black mud out of snow. In his reverie he loo
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 up-stairs in a cloud of shrill apologies and trailing A
Jock!"
!" said the o
pening?" Denry e
ut the antics of one o
n white. Except that nothing glittered in her hair, she looked the very eq
waltz?" Denry b
with chilliness. "I suppose you 've been st
he said. "I did n't
n't you look at
t one," he s
take a programme
, cuttingly, somewhat in h
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 Sillitoe,
y 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
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
ver you don't," sai
Denry very quickly, and