durin' the forty minute
wait while Lucy Lee dresses for dinner.
"Oh, yes," says Vee, with a knowin' smile. "That is her specialty, I
believe. She's a dear though, even if she doesn't mean quite all of it."
"Ah, why wake me up!" says I, grinnin'.
It was next mornin' though that I got my big jolt, when an express truck
backs up with about a ton of baggage. There was only two wardrobe
trunks, a hat trunk, and a steamer trunk, and the men unloads 'em all.
"Hal-lup!" says I, when they staggers in with the last one. "Who's
movin' in?"
Seems it's the few little things that Lucy Lee needs for the week-end.
"I've told her to send for her maid," says Vee. "It was stupid of me not
to think of that before, knowing Lucy Lee."
And later, when I've been called in to help undo the straps, I gets a
glimpse of the exhibit. Morning and afternoon frocks in one, evening
gowns in another, the steamer trunk full of shoes, besides all the hats.
"Huh!" says I, on the side to Vee. "Carries all her own scenery, don't
she? Say, there's enough to outfit a Ziegfeld song revue."
What got the biggest gasp out of me though, was when Lucy Lee unpacks
her collection of framed photos and ranges 'em on the mantel and
dressin'-table. More'n a dozen, all men.
"You don't mean, Lucy Lee," says Vee, "that these are all--er--on the
active list?"
"I'm sure I don't know what you mean," says Lucy Lee, springin' the baby
stare. "They are simply some of my men friends. For instance, this is
dear old Major Knight, who's chairman of some board or other that Daddy
is a director on. He is so jolly and is always saying--Well, never mind
that. This one is Victor Norris, who tried so hard to get into aviation
and was just about to fly when the war had to go and end it. He's a
perfectly heavenly dancer. Then there's poor Arthur Kirby, only a
secretary to some senator, but such a nice boy. And the one in the naval
uniform is Dick--er--Well, I met him at a dinner in Washington just
before he got his discharge and he told me so many thrilling things
about chasing submarines in the North Sea or--or the Mediterranean or
somewhere. Hasn't he nice eyes, though? And this next one----"
Well, I forget the rest for about then I got busy wonderin' how she
could keep the run of 'em all without the aid of a card index. But she
could. To Lucy Lee life must seem like a parade, she being the given
point. Which was where I begun to agree with Vee that there ought to be
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