pink-brocaded sitting-room, her spirit rose with the soughing rise of the
elevator, and Romance--hardy fellow--showed himself within a murky hotel
corridor.

"Honeybunch!"

"Babe!" said Mr. Blutch Connors, upon the slam of the lift door.

And there, in the dim-lit halls, with its rows of closed doors in
blank-faced witness thereof, they embraced, these two, despising, as
Flaubert despised, to live in the reality of things.

"My boy's beau-ful cheeks all cold!"

"My girl's beau-ful cheeks all warm and full of some danged good cologne,"
said Mr. Connors, closing the door of their rooms upon them, pressing her
head back against the support of his arm, and kissing her throat as the
chin flew up.

He pressed a button, and the room sprang into more light, coming out pinkly
and vividly--the brocaded walls pliant to touch with every so often a
gilt-framed engraving; a gilt table with an onyx top cheerfully cluttered
with the sauciest short-story magazines of the month; a white mantelpiece
with an artificial hearth and a pink-and-gilt _chaise-longue_ piled high
with small, lacy pillows, and a very green magazine open and face downward
on the floor beside it.

"Comin' better, honeybunch?"

"I dunno, Babe. The town's mad with money, but I don't feel myself going
crazy with any of it."

"What ud you bring us, honey?"

He slid out of his silk-lined greatcoat, placing his brown derby atop.

"Three guesses, Babe," he said, rubbing his cold hands in a dry wash, and
smiling from five feet eleven of sartorial accomplishment down upon her.

"Honey darlin'!" said Mrs. Connors, standing erect and placing her cheek
against the third button of his waistcoat.

"Wow! how I love the woman!" he cried, closing his hands softly about her
throat and tilting her head backward again.

"Darlin', you hurt!"

"Br-r-r--can't help it!"

When Mr. Connors moved, he gave off the scent of pomade freely; his
slightly thinning brown hair and the pointy tips to a reddish mustache
lay sleek with it. There was the merest suggestion of _embonpoint_ to the
waistcoat, but not so that, when he dropped his eyes, the blunt toes of his
russet shoes were not in evidence. His pin-checked suit was pressed to a
knife-edge, and his brocaded cravat folded to a nicety; there was an air
of complete well-being about him. Men can acquire that sort of eupeptic
well-being in a Turkish bath. Young mothers and life-jobbers have it
naturally.

Suddenly, Mrs. Connor