Eddie gratefully swallowed three in rapid succession.

"I see you mean to make it absolutely necessary for me to take the
gold cure," he said with a forlorn smile.

Martha put in an appearance at seven-thirty, having kept dinner
waiting for half an hour, much to the amazement of those who had lived
with her long enough to know her promptness in appearing for meals.

Mr. Ten Eyck, who was a rather good-looking chap and fastidious to a
degree, did not possess the strength to keep his heart anywhere near
the customary level. It went hurtling to his very boots. He shook
hands with the blushing young woman and then involuntarily shrank
toward the cocktails, disregarding the certainty that he would find
them lukewarm and tasteless.

She was gotten up for the occasion. But, as it was not her costume
that he was to embrace in matrimony, we will omit a description of the
creation she wore. It was pink, of course, and cut rather low in order
to protect her face from the impudent gaze of man.

Her face? Picture the face of the usual heroine in fiction and then
contrive to think of the most perfect antithesis, and you have Martha
in your mind's eye much more clearly than through any description I
could hope to present.

She was squat. Her somewhat brawny shoulders sloped downward and
forward--and perhaps a little sidewise, I am not sure about that. Her
hair was straw-coloured and stringy in spite of the labour she had
expended on it with curling-iron and brush. As to her face, the more