Vera, the Medium Part 8

"That's what I told you," retorted Mannie. He lowered his voice, and gazed apprehensively toward the front parlor. "If you want a really good thing," he whispered hoa.r.s.ely, "ask Joe what Pompadour is in the fifth!"

Mabel laughed scornfully, disappointedly.

"Pompadour!" she mocked.

"That's right!" cried the expert. "That's the one daily hint from Paris today. Joe will give you thirty to one."

Upon the defenseless woman he turned the full force of his accursed smile. "Put five on for me, Mabel?" he begged.

With unexpected determination of character Mabel declared sharply that she would do nothing of the sort.

"Two, then?" entreated the boy.

"Where," demanded Mabel unfeelingly, "is the twenty you owe me now?"

The abruptness of this unsportsmanlike blow below the belt caused Mannie to wince.

"How do I know where it is?" he protested. "As long as you haven't got it, why do you care where it is?" He heard the door from the hall open and, turning, saw Vera. He appealed to her. "Vera," he cried, "You'll loan me two dollars? I stand to win sixty. I'll give you thirty."

Vera looked inquiringly at Mabel. "What is it, Mabel," she asked, "a hand book?"

Mrs. Vance nodded guiltily.

"Mannie!" exclaimed Vera gently but reproachfully, "I told you I wouldn't loan you any more money till you paid Mabel what you've borrowed."

"How can I pay Mabel what I borrowed," demanded Mannie, "if I can't borrow the money from you to pay her? Only two dollars, Vera!"

Vera nodded to Mabel.

Mabel, at the phone, called, "Two dollars on Pompadour--to--win--for Mannie Day," and rang off.

"That makes thirty for you," exclaimed Mannie enthusiastically, "and twenty I owe to Mabel, and that leaves me ten."

Mrs. Vance, no longer occupied in the whirlpool of speculation, for the first time observed that Vera had changed her matronly robe of black lace for a short white skirt and a white s.h.i.+rtwaist. She noted also that there was a change in Vera's face and manner. She gave an impression of nervous eagerness, of unrest. Her smile seemed more appealing, wistful, girlish. She looked like a child of fourteen.

But Mabel was concerned more especially with the robe of virgin white.

For the month, which was July, the costume was appropriate, but, in the opinion of Mabel, in no way suited to the priestess of the occult and the mysterious.

"Why, Vera!" exclaimed Mrs. Vance, "whatever have you got on? Ain't you going to receive visitors? There's ten dollars waiting in there now."

In sudden apprehension, Vera looked down at her spotless garments.

"Don't I look nice?" she begged.

"Of course you look nice, dearie," Mabel a.s.sured her, "but you don't look like no fortune teller."

"If you want to know what you look like," said Mannie sternly, "you look like one of the waiter girls at Childs's--that's what you look like."

"And your crown!" exclaimed Mabel, "and your kimono. Ain't you going to wear your kimono?"

She hastened to the cabinet and produced the cloak of black velvet and spangles, and the silver-gilt crown.

"No, I am not!" declared Vera. She wore the frightened look of a mutinous child. "I--I look so--foolish in them!"

Such heresy caused Mannie to gasp aloud; "You look grand in them," he protested; "don't she, Mabel?"

"Sure she does," a.s.sented that lady.

"And your junk?" demanded Mannie, referring to the jade necklace and the gold-plated bracelets. His eyes opened in sympathy. "You haven't p.a.w.ned them, have you?"

"p.a.w.ned them?" laughed Vera; "I couldn't get anything on them!" As the only masculine point of view available, she appealed to Mannie wistfully. "Don't you like me better this way, Mannie?" she begged.

But that critic protested violently.

"Not a bit like it," he cried. "Now, in the gold tiara and the spangled opera cloak," he differentiated, "you look like a picture postal card!

You got Lotta Faust's blue skirt back to Levey's. But not in the white goods!" He shook his head sadly, firmly. "You look, now, like you was made up for a May-day picnic in the Bronx, and they'd picked on you to be Queen of the May."

Mabel carried the much-admired opera cloak to Vera, and held it out, tempting her. "You'll wear it, just to please me and Mannie, won't you, dearie?" she begged. Vera retreated before it as though it held the germs of contagion.

"I will not," she rebelled. "I hate it! When I have that on, I feel--mean. I feel as mean as though I were picking pennies out of a blind man's hat." Mannie roared with delight.

"Gee!" he shouted, "but that's a hot one."

"Besides," said Vera consciously, "I'm--I'm expecting some one."

The manner more than the words thrilled Mabel with the most joyful expectations.

She exclaimed excitedly. "A gentleman friend, Vera?" she asked.

That Vera shunned all young men had been to Mabel a source of wonder and of pride. Even when the young men were the friends of her husband and of herself, the preoccupied manner with which Vera received them did not provoke in Mabel any resentment. It rather increased her approbation.

Although horrified at the recklessness of the girl, she had approved even when Vera rejected an offer of marriage from a wine agent.

Secretly, for a proper alliance for her, Mabel read the society columns in search of eligible, rich young men. Finding that they invariably married eligible, rich young women, she had lately determined that Vera's destiny must be an English duke.

Still if, as she hoped, Vera had chosen for herself, Mabel felt a.s.sured that the man would prove worthy, and a good match. A good match meant one who owned not only a runabout, but a touring car.

"It's a man from home," said Vera. "Home?" queried Mannie.

"From up the State," explained Vera, "from Geneva. It's--Mr. Winthrop."

With an exclamation of alarm, Mannie started upright. "Winthrop!" he cried; then with a laugh of relief he sank back. "Gee! You give me a scare," he cried. "I thought you meant the District Attorney."

Mabel laughed sympathetically.

"I thought so too," she admitted.

"I do mean the District Attorney," said the girl.

"Vera!" cried Mabel.