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By Root 9076 0

head he walked across the soft plumcolored carpet to Margo. "Wel , ma dear young lady, you must excuse me. But duty cal s. This was indeed delightful." Margo went out with him to his car. The rosy evening was fading into dusk. A mockingbird was singing in a peppertree beside the house. "When can I bring the jewelry?" Margo said, leaning towards the judge over the front seat of the car. "Perhaps you better come to my office tomorrow noon. We'l go over to the bank together. Of course the appraisal wil have to be at the expense of the borrower.""O.K. and by that time I hope you'l have thought of some way I can turn it over quick. What's the use of having a boom if you don't take advan-tage of it?" The judge leaned over to kiss her. His wet lips brushed against her ear as she pul ed her head away. "Be yourself, judge," she said. In the livingroom Cliff was striding up and down fit to be tied. He stopped in his tracks and came towards her with his fists clenched as if he were going to hit her. He was chewing gum; the thin jaw moving from side to side gave him a face like a sheep. "Wel , the boss soitenly done right by little Orphan Annie."

"Wel , if that's al you came down here to tel me you can just get on the train and go back home."

"Look here, Margo, I've come on business."

"On business?" Margo let herself drop into a pink over-stuffed chair. "Sit down, Cliff . . . but you didn't need to come barging in here like a process server. Is it about Charley's estate?"

"Estate hel . . . I want you to marry me. The pickin's are slim right now but I've got a big career ahead." Margo let out a shriek and let her head drop on the back of the chair. She got to laughing and couldn't stop laugh--388-ing. "No, honestly, Cliff," she spluttered. "But I don't want to marry anybody just now. . . . Why, Cliff, you sweet kid. I could kiss you." He came over and tried to hug her. She got to her feet and pushed him away. "I'm not going to let things like that interfere with my career either."

Cliff frowned. "I won't marry an actress. . . . You'd have to can that stuff." Margo got to laughing again. "Not even a moving-picture actress?"

"Aw, hel , al you do is kid and I'm nuts about you." He sat down on the davenport and wrung his head between his hands. She moved over and sat down beside him. "For-get it, Cliff." Cliff jumped up again. "I can tel you one thing, you won't get anywheres fooling around with that old buzzard Cassidy. He's a married man and so crooked he has to go through a door edgeways. He gypped hel out of the boss in that airport deal. Hel . . . . That's probably no news to you. You probably were in on it and got your cut first thing. . . . And then you think it's a whale of a joke when a guy comes al the way down to the jumpingoff place to offer you the protection of his name. Al right, I'm through. Good . . . night." He went out slamming the glass doors into the hal so hard that a pane of glass broke and tinkled down to the floor.

Agnes rushed in from the diningroom. "Oh, how dread-ful," she said. "I was listening. I thought maybe poor Mr. Anderson had left a trustfund for you.""That boy's got bats in his belfry," said Margo. A minute later the phone rang. It was Cliff with tears in his voice, apologizing, ask-ing if he couldn't come back to talk it over. "Not on your tintype," said Margo and hung up. "Wel , Agnes," said Margo as she came from the telephone, "that's that. . . . We've got to figure these things out. . . . Cliff's right about that old fool Cassidy. He never was in the picture

-389-anyways.""Such a dignified man," said Agnes, making clucking noises with her tongue.

Raymond announced dinner. Margo and Agnes ate

alone, each at one end of the long mahogany table covered with doilies and silverware. The soup was cold and too salty. "I've told that damn girl a hundred times not to do anything to the soup but take it out of the can and heat it," Margo said peevishly. "Oh, Agnes, please do the housekeeping . . . I can't get 'em to do anything right."

"Oh, I'd love to," said Agnes. "Of course I've never kept house