I expect I'll
run 'em into a clinch with another guy standin' around eatin' his heart
out with jealousy. It'll serve him right; he's just that mean sort,
you know. Oh, I'll just marry 'em, along toward the end of the last
chapter, and that'll kind of close it up."
Stephen O'Mara had been watching Joe's face while the latter talked,
and therefore he was no more prepared than was Joe himself for the
burst of harsh laughter that came from Garry's lips. It seemed utterly
illogical that all actual humor should so swiftly fade from that
situation with the first really audible expression of mirth. Steve
himself believed it was only simulated, until his eyes swung to Garry's
face. But he knew then what thoughts had been with Garret Devereau,
all evening, before he had come up unheard to the door.
"Why, you poor simple scholar of nature!" The wan-faced one's lips
curled. "You're years behind your day! If you submitted such a screed
to a publisher now, he'd think you'd written a history of archaic
American types."
He stopped to sneer.
"Listen," he went on. "Listen, and I'll give you a plot, gratis,
which, if you handle it right, will make you, overnight! Take your
girl--a nice girl, to be sure, sweet and unsophisticated and--and
childishly innocent, Joe, and--and well, you'll have to describe her,
first, won't you? Let's dress her up, then--dress her up in an evening
confection that leaves little to the imagination in front and--and
ground for amazement in back.
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