He married Ruth, and she led society. Just
a little careful scheming, that's all."
"I should say you have been reading, Fanny Brandeis," said
Emma McChesney. She was smiling, but her eyes were serious.
"Now listen to me, child. The very next time a traveling
man in a brown suit and a red necktie asks you to take
dinner with him at the Haley House--even one of those roast
pork, queen-fritter-with-rum-sauce, Roman punch Sunday
dinners--I want you to accept."
"Even if he wears an Elks' pin, and a Masonic charm, and a
diamond ring and a brown derby?"
"Even if he shows you the letters from his girl in
Manistee," said Mrs. McChesney solemnly. "You've been
seeing too much of Fanny Brandeis."
CHAPTER SEVEN
Theodore had been gone six years. His letters, all too
brief, were events in the lives of the two women. They read
and reread them. Fanny unconsciously embellished them with
fascinating details made up out of her own imagination.
"They're really triumphs of stupidity and dullness," she
said one day in disgust, after one of Theodore's long-
awaited letters had proved particularly dry and sparse.
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