?"

"I shouldn't say so," says I. "Course I don't know what she used to be,
but I'd call her more or less classy."

"But she is--let me see--almost forty," he insists.

"You don't mean it?" says I, openin' my mouth to register surprise. This
looked like a good line to me and I thought I'd push it. "Course," I
goes on, "with a daughter old enough to wear orange blossoms, I might
have figured that for myself. But I'll be hanged if she looks it. Why,
lots of folks take her and Polly for sisters."

He's eatin' that up, you can see. "Hm-m-m!" says he, rubbin' his chin.
"I suppose I would be expected to--er--meet her there?"

"I believe the program is for you to take her to the church and bring
her back for the reception," says I. "Yes, you'd have a chance for quite
a reunion."

"I wonder how it would seem, talking to Louise again," says he.

"Might be a little awkward at first," says I, "but----"

"Do you know," he breaks in, "I believe I should like it. If you think
she's good looking now, young man, you should have seen her at 19, at
22, or at 25. What an ass I was! And now I suppose she's like a full
blown rose, perfect, exquisite?"

"Oh, I don't mean she's any ravin' beauty," says I, hedgin'.

"You don't, eh?" says he. "Well, I'd just like to see. You may tell her
that I will----No, I'll 'phone her myself. Where is she?"

And all the stallin' around I could do didn't jar him away from that
idea. He seems to have forgotten all about this Mabel person who was
going to sing. He wanted to call up Louise right away. And he did.

So I don't have any chesty bulletin to hand Mr. Robert when I gets back.

"Well?" says he. "Did you induce him to give the right answer?"

"Almost," says I. "Had him panicky inside of three minutes."

"And then?" asks Mr. Robert.

"I overdid the act," says I. "Talked too much. He's coming."

Mr. Robert shrugs his shoulders. "Serves Bruce right," says he. "I
wonder, though, how Louise will take it."

For a couple of days she took it hard. Just talking over the 'phone with
Dick Harrington left her weak and nervous. Said she couldn't sleep all
that night for thinking what it would be like to meet an ex-hubby that
she hadn't seen for so long. She tried to picture how he would look, and
how she would look to him. Then she braced up.

"If I must go through it," she confides to Mrs. Robert, "I mean to look
my best."

Isn't that the female instinct for you?

As a matter of fact I'd ki