Page:To-morrow Morning (1927).pdf/128

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on her head, goggles, long dust-colored veil, and pongee duster, buying cream puffs.

"Hop into the auto and I'll ride you home."

So Kate, pleased and self-conscious and hoping people would see her, climbed in through the door in the middle of the back of the Driggs' automobile, and Mrs. Driggs heaved and squeezed after her.

"When do you expect Hoagland for his spring vacation?" Kate asked, clutching her hat, bowing involuntarily now and then as Noble drove them jerkily home. For Hoagland was a grown-up young man, in his last year at Princeton, coming back for the holidays bland and fat, wearing matching ties and socks, and boutonnieres that were almost corsage bouquets. He made Kate feel five years old when he replied to her observations with his tolerant, "I see." A steady young man, very different from the sixteen-year-old Hoagland who had to be sent away to boarding school because of his infatuation for Opal Mendoza. The Driggses had had an awful time with him then. Mr. Driggs had nearly had a stroke, he was so angry, and Mrs. Driggs went around with her face all puffed up and her eyes nearly shut from crying, and the Greens no longer heard "Tell Me, Pretty Maiden" and "The Rosary" from the Driggs' pianola across the street. Kate used to say they would drive her crazy, but she missed them when they stopped. And Opal, with blue stuff smeared on her eyelids, although she was only sixteen, and cheap perfume, strong enough to