The Last Woman

Beatrice Brunswick was unmistakably red-headed. Referring to her hair in cold-blooded terms, no other hue could have described it. It was like that old-fashioned kind of red copper, after it has been hammered into sheets, in the manner in which it was treated before less arduous methods were invented. It was remarkable hair, too--there was such a wealth of it! It had always impressed Duncan with the idea that each individual hair was in business for itself, refusing utterly to stay where it was put. A young woman's crowning glory, always, this happened to be particularly true in the case of Miss Brunswick, for, although her features and her figure and her graceful motions left nothing to be desired, it was her wonderful hair, emphasized by the saucy poise of her head, that became her crowning glory, indeed. Duncan took a seat near to her, so that she was between him and the banker; and presently Beatrice inclined her head toward him, and whispered: "What's the matter, Roderick? You look like a banquet of the Skull and Bones, which my brother described to me once, when he was at Yale."

"I'll tell you about it later," was the response; and Duncan shut his jaws, and bent his attention grimly upon the stage.

"Why not now?" She asked.

"There isn't time; and besides--"

"Have you been quarreling with our Juno? Have you two been scrapping?" She whispered, smiling bewitchingly, and bending still nearer to him. Miss Brunswick was sometimes given to the milder uses of slang.

Duncan nodded, without replying in words. He kept his eyes directly toward the stage. But Miss Brunswick was insistent.

"Is Patricia on her high horse to-night?" she asked, with a light laugh.

Duncan replied to her with another nod, and a wry smile.

"She wants to look out about that high horse of hers, Roderick, or sometime it will hit the top rail and give her a fall that she won't get over for a while. What our beautiful Juno needs most is what I used to get oftenest when I was about three years old. Perhaps you can guess what it was; if you can't, I won't tell you."

"I expect you were a regular little devil then, weren't you?" he asked, endeavoring to assume a cheerfulness he was far from experiencing at that moment.

"I expect I was; and the strange part of it is that there are lots and lots of people who insist that I have never got over it. But I can read you like a book. You and Mr. Langdon and Patricia have been having no end of a row. He might just as well have told me that much when he came after me and insisted that I should accompany him to the opera to-night. He said that Patricia wouldn't, and he wanted me to take her place. I wish you would tell me all about it." Then, with a slight toss of her head, Beatrice added: "I suppose Patricia has refused you again?"