Big Money Read Online Free Page A

cordial to Charley and brought out cocktails right away, and Charley felt like the cock of the walk.
    There was a girl named Miss Humphries who was as pretty as a picture. The minute Charley set eyes on her Charley decided that was who he was going to talk to. Her eyes and her fluffy palegreen dress and the powder in the little hollow between her shoulderblades made him feel a little dizzy so that he didn’t dare stand too close to her. Ollie saw the two of them together and came up and pinched her ear. “Doris, you’ve grown up to be a raving beauty.” He stood beaming teetering a little on his short legs. “Hum . . . only the brave deserve the fair. . . . It’s not every day we come home from the wars, is it, Charley me boy?”
    â€œIsn’t he a darling?” she said when Ollie turned away. “We used to be great sweethearts when I was about six and he was a collegeboy.” When they were all ready to go into dinner Ollie, who’d had a couple more cocktails, spread out his arms and made a speech. “Look at them, lovely, intelligent, lively American women. . . . There was nothing like that on the other side, was there, Charley? Three things you can’t get anywhere else in the world, a good cocktail, a decent breakfast, and an American girl, God bless ’em.” “Oh, he’s such a darling,” whispered Miss Humphries in Charley’s ear.
    There was silverware in rows and rows on the table and a Chinese bowl with roses in the middle of it, and a group of giltstemmed wineglasses at each place. Charley was relieved when he found he was sitting next to Miss Humphries. She was smiling up at him. “Gosh,” he said, grinning into her face, “I hardly know how to act.” “It must be a change . . . from over there. But just act natural. That’s what I do.”
    â€œOh, no, a feller always gets into trouble when he acts natural.”
    She laughed. “Maybe you’re right. . . . Oh, do tell me what it was really like over there. . . . Nobody’ll ever tell me everything.” She pointed to the palms on his Croix de Guerre. “Oh, Lieutenant Anderson, you must tell me about those.”
    They had white wine with the fish and red wine with the roastbeef
and a dessert all full of whippedcream. Charley kept telling himself he mustn’t drink too much so that he’d be sure to behave right.
    Miss Humphries’ first name was Doris. Mrs. Benton called her that. She’d spent a year in a convent in Paris before the war and asked him about places she’d known, the church of the Madeleine and Rumpelmayers and the pastryshop opposite the Comédie Française. After dinner she and Charley took their coffeecups into a windowbay behind a big pink begonia in a brass pot and she asked him if he didn’t think New York was awful. She sat on the windowseat and he stood over her looking past her white shoulder through the window down at the traffic in the street below. It had come on to rain and the lights of the cars made long rippling streaks on the black pavement of Park Avenue. He said something about how he thought home would look pretty good to him all the same. He was wondering if it would be all right if he told her she had beautiful shoulders. He’d just about gotten around to it when he heard Ollie Taylor getting everybody together to go out to a cabaret. “I know it’s a chore,” Ollie was saying, “but you children must remember it’s my first night in New York and humor my weakness.”
    They stood in a group under the marquee while the doorman called taxicabs. Doris Humphries in her long eveningwrap with fur at the bottom of it stood so close to Charley her shoulder touched his arm. In the lashing rainy wind off the street he could smell the warm perfume she wore and her furs and her hair. They stood back while the older people got into