Sister Mabel calmed down, and the disappointed young ladies crossed Babe off the last-hope list. Besides, a perfectly good scandal broke out in the bridge playing and dancing set, and Babe Cutler"s rapid little romance was forgotten. Five or six Sundays came and went, with Mondays following regular.

And then here the other afternoon, as I"m camped down next to the car window on my way home, who should tap me on the shoulder but the same old Babe. That is, unless you looked close. For there"s a worried, puzzled look in his wide set eyes and he don"t spring the usual hail.

"h.e.l.lo!" says I. "Ain"t lost your baggage checks, have you?"

"It"s worse than that," says he. "I--I"ve lost--Lucy."

"Wha-a-t!" says I, gaspy. "You don"t mean she--she"s----"

"No," says Babe. "She"s just quit me and gone home."

"But--but why?" I blurted out.

"Lord knows," groans Babe. "That"s what I want to find out."

Honest, it listens like a first-cla.s.s mystery. According to him they"d been staying at one of the swellest joints he could find in the whole state of Florida. Also he"d bought Lucy all the kinds of clothes she would let him buy, from sport suits to evening gowns. She"d taken up a lot of different things, too--golf, riding, swimming, dancing. Seemed to be having a bully time when--bang! She breaks out into a weepy spell and announces that she is going home. Does it, too, all by her lonesome, leaving Babe to trail along by the next train.

"And for the life of me, Torchy," he declares, "I can"t imagine why."

"Well, let"s try to piece it out," says I. "First off, how have you been spending your honeymoon?"

"Oh, golf mostly," says he. "I was runner up in the big tournament."

"I see," says I. "Thirty-six holes a day, eh?"

He nods.

"And a jack-pot session with the old crowd every evening?" I asks.

"Oh, only now and then," says he.

"With a few late parties down in the grill?" I goes on.

"Not a party," says Babe. "State"s dry, you know. No, generally we went into the ballroom evenings and I helped Lucy try out the new steps she was learning."

"You did!" says I. "Then I give it up."

"Me too," says Babe. "But I"m not going to give up Lucy. Say, she"s a regular person, she is. She was making good, too, and having a whale of a time when all of a sudden--Say, Torchy, if it was some break I made I want to know it, so I can square myself. She wouldn"t tell me; wouldn"t have a word to say. But listen, perhaps if you asked her----"

"Hey, back up!" says I.

"You know, if it hadn"t been for you I might never have seen her," he goes on. "You were there when it began, and if there"s to be a finish you might as well be in on that, too. I"ve got to know what it was I did, though. Honest, I can"t remember anything particularly raw. Been chewing over it for two nights. If you could just----"

Well, at the end of ten minutes I agrees to go up to the plumber"s house, and if the new Mrs. Cutler will see me I says I"ll put it up to her.

"But you got to come along and hang around outside while I"m doing it,"

I insists.

"I"ll do anything that either you or Lucy asks," says he. "I"ll go the limit."

"That listens fair enough," says I.

So that"s how it happens I"m waitin" in the plumber"s parlor for Babe Cutler"s runaway bride. And say, when she shows up in that zippy sport suit, just in from a long tramp across country, she looks some cla.s.sy.

First off she"s inclined to be nervous and jumpy and don"t want to talk about Babe at all.

"Oh, he"s all right," says she. "I have nothing against him. He--he meant well."

"As bad as that, was he?" says I. "I shall hate to tell him."

"But it wasn"t Babe, at all," she insists. "Don"t you dare say it was, either. If you must know, it was that awful hotel life. I--I just couldn"t stand it."

"Eh?" says I, and I expect I must have been gawpin" some. "Why, I understand you were at one of the swellest----"

"We were," says she. "That was the trouble. And I suppose if I"d known how, I might have had a swell time. But I didn"t. I"d had no practice.

And say, if you think you can learn to be a regular winter resort person in a few weeks just try it once. I did. I went at it wholesale. All of the things I"d wanted to do and thought I could do, I tackled. It looks like a lot of fun to see those girls start off with their golf clubs.

Seems easy to swing a driver and crack out the little white ball. Take it from me, though, it"s nothing of the kind. Why, I spent hours and hours out on the practice tee with a grouchy Scotch professional trying my best to hit it right. And I couldn"t. At the end of three weeks I was still a duffer. All I"d acc.u.mulated were palm callouses and a backache.

Yet I knew just how it should be done. I can repeat it now. One--you take your "stance. Two--you start the head of the club back in a straight line with the left wrist. Three--you come up on your left toe and bend the right knee. And so on. Yet I"d dub the ball only a few yards.

"Then, when that was over, I"d go in and change for my dancing lessons.

More one--two--three stuff. And say, some of these new jazz steps are queer, aren"t they? I"d about got three or four all mixed up in my head when I"d have to run and jump into my riding habit and go through a different lot of one--two--three motions. And just as I"d lamed myself in a lot of new places there would come the swimming lesson. I thought I could swim some, too. I learned one summer down at Far Rockaway. But it seems that was old stuff. They aren"t doing that now. No, it"s the double side stroke, the Australian crawl, and a lot more. One, two, three, four, five, six. Legs straight, chin down, and roll on the three. And if you dream it"s a pleasure to have a big husk of an instructor pump your arms back and forth for an hour, and say sarcastic things to you when you get mixed, with a whole gallery of fat old women and grinning old sports looking on--Well, I"m tellin" you it"s fierce.

Ab-so-lutely. It was the swimming lesson that finished me. Especially the counting. "Why, Lucy Snell, you poor prune," says I to myself, "you"re not having a good time. You"re back in school, second grade, and the dunce of the cla.s.s." That"s what I was, too. A flat failure. And when I got to thinking of how Babe would take it when he found out--Well, it got on my nerves so that I simply made a run for home.

There! You can tell him all about it, and I suppose he"ll never want to see or hear of me again."

"Maybe," says I, "but I have my doubts. Anyway, it won"t take long to make a test."

And when I"d left her and strolled out to the gate where Babe is pacin"

up and down anxious, he demands at once: "Well, did you find out?"

"Uh-huh," says I.

"Was--was it something I did?" he asks trembly.

"Sure it was," says I. "You let her in for an intensive training act that would make the Paris Island marine school grind look like a wand drill. You should have had better sense, too. Why, what she was trying to sop up in six weeks most young ladies give as many years to. Near as I can judge she was making a game play of it, too. But of course she couldn"t last out. And it"s a wonder she didn"t wind up at a nerve sanitarium."

"Honest!" says Babe, beamin" on me and grabbin" my hand. "Is--is that all?"

"Ain"t that enough?" says I.

"But that"s so easy fixed," says he. "Why, I am bored stiff at these resort places myself. I thought, though, that Lucy was having the time of her young life. What a chump I was not to see! Say, we"ll take a fresh start. And next time, believe me, she"s going to have just what she wants. That is, if I can persuade her to give me another trial."

It seems he did, for later on he tells me he"s bought that cute little stucco cottage over near the country club and that him and Lucy are going to settle down like regular people.

"With a nursery and all?" I asks.

"There"s no telling," says Babe.

And with that we swaps grins.