PEGGY-IN-THE-RAIN
with the vender. There was a half-column of speculation masquerading as knowledge in which Gordon was referred to variously as the Boy Magnate, the Young Railroad President, the Bachelor Millionaire, and Society's Darling. Gordon glanced through the article, mentally shrugged his shoulders and tossed the paper to the table again. Then he picked up a magazine, pushed a button and dropped into a leather chair. An attendant crossed the heavy crimson and blue rug with noiseless steps.
"When Mr. Waring comes in," Gordon instructed, "ask him to look for me here, please."
The magazine, which he had selected quite at random, opened itself at an article on "New York's Landed Proprietors." The first turn of a page revealed a half-tone reproduction of a photograph labelled "Gordon Patterson Ames—Photo Copyrighted by Neville." Gordon had set for the likeness four years before, and it represented him as an insufferably priggish young man of twenty-three with an incipient mustache, his hair plastered to his head and a gardenia as big as a cabbage rose in the buttonhole of a checked morning coat. He shuddered. Old photographs, like sins,
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