Baby Mine | Page 6

brown-eyed Diana? Try as he
would he could not find words to break the silence that had fallen
between them. She was so imposing; so self-controlled. It really
seemed to Jimmy that she should be the one to ask him to dance. As a
matter of fact, that was just what happened; and after the dance she
suggested that they sit in the garden; and in the garden, with the
moonlight barely peeping through the friendly overhanging boughs of
the trees, Jimmy found Aggie capable of a courage that filled him with
amazement; and later that night, when he and Alfred exchanged
confidences, it became apparent to the latter that Aggie had volunteered
to undertake the responsibility of outlining Jimmy's entire future.
He was to follow his father's wishes and take up a business career in
Chicago at once; and as soon as all the relatives concerned on both
sides had been duly consulted, he and Aggie were to embark upon
matrimony.
"Good!" cried Alfred, when Jimmy had managed to stammer his
shame-faced confession. "We'll make it a double wedding. I can be
ready to-morrow, so far as I'm concerned." And then followed another
rhapsody upon the fitness of Zoie as the keeper of his future home and
hearth, and the mother of his future sons and daughters. In fact, it was
far into the night when the two friends separated--separated in more
than one sense, as they afterward learned.
While Alfred and Jimmy were saying "good- night" to each other, Zoie
and Aggie in one of the pretty chintz bedrooms of Professor Peck's
modest home, were still exchanging mutual confidences.
"The thing I like about Alfred," said Zoie, as she gazed at the tip of her
dainty satin slipper, and turned her head meditatively to one side, "is
his positive nature. I've never before met any one like him. Do you
know," she added with a sly twinkle in her eye, "it was all I could do to
keep from laughing at him. He's so awfully serious." She giggled to
herself at the recollection of him; then she leaned forward to Aggie, her
small hands clasped across her knees and her face dimpling with
mischief. "He hasn't the remotest idea what I'm like."

Aggie studied her young friend with unmistakable reproach. "I MADE
Jimmy know what I'M like," she said. "I told him ALL my ideas about
everything."
"Good Heavens!" exclaimed Zoie in shocked surprise.
"He's sure to find out sooner or later," said Aggie sagely. "I think that's
the only sensible way to begin."
"If I'd told Alfred all MY ideas about things," smiled Zoie, "there'd
have BEEN no beginning."
"What do you mean?" asked Aggie, with a troubled look.
"Well, take our meeting," explained Zoie. "Just as we were introduced,
that horrid little Willie Peck caught his heel in a flounce of my skirt. I
turned round to slap him, but I saw Alfred looking, so I patted his ugly
little red curls instead. And what do you think? Alfred told me to-night
that it was my devotion to Willie that first made him adore me."
"And you didn't explain to him?" asked Aggie in amazement.
"And lose him before I'd got him!" exclaimed Zoie.
"It might be better than losing him AFTER you've got him," concluded
the elder girl.
"Oh, Aggie," pouted Zoie, "I think you are horrid. You're just trying to
spoil all the fun of my engagement."
"I am not," cried Aggie, and the next moment she was sitting on the
arm of Zoie's chair.
"Goose!" she said, "how dare you be cross with me?"
"I am NOT cross," declared Zoie, and after the customary apologies
from Aggie, confidence was fully restored on both sides and Zoie
continued gaily: "Don't you worry about Alfred and me," she said as
she kicked off her tiny slippers and hopped into bed. "Just you wait

until I get him. I'll manage him all right."
"I dare say," answered Aggie; not without misgivings, as she turned off
the light.
CHAPTER III
The double wedding of four of Chicago's "Younger Set" had been
adequately noticed in the papers, the conventional "honeymoon"
journey had been made, and Alfred Hardy and Jimmy Jinks had now
settled down to the routine of their respective business interests.
Having plunged into his office work with the same vigour with which
he had attacked higher mathematics, Alfred had quickly gained the
confidence of the elders of his firm, and they had already begun to give
way to him in many important decisions. In fact, he was now
practically at the head of his particular department with one office
doing well in Chicago and a second office promising well in Detroit.
As for Jimmy, he had naturally started his business career with fewer
pyrotechnics; but he was none