Tales of the Jazz Age | Page 9

interfere--a girl of that
age and position would hardly have two bank accounts. When the clock
struck two he contained himself no longer.
"May I--can't you let me roll 'em for you?" he suggested, his low, lazy
voice a little strained.
Suddenly sleepy and listless, Nancy flung the dice down before him.
"All right--old boy! As Lady Diana Manners says, 'Shoot 'em,
Jelly-bean'--My luck's gone."
"Mr. Taylor," said Jim, carelessly, "we'll shoot for one of those there
checks against the cash."
Half an hour later Nancy swayed forward and clapped him on the back.
"Stole my luck, you did." She was nodding her head sagely.
Jim swept up the last check and putting it with the others tore them into
confetti and scattered them on the floor. Someone started singing and
Nancy kicking her chair backward rose to her feet.

"Ladies and gentlemen," she announced, "Ladies--that's you Marylyn. I
want to tell the world that Mr. Jim Powell, who is a well-known
Jelly-bean of this city, is an exception to the great rule--'lucky in
dice--unlucky in love.' He's lucky in dice, and as matter of fact I--I love
him. Ladies and gentlemen, Nancy Lamar, famous dark-haired beauty
often featured in the Herald as one the most popular members of
younger set as other girls are often featured in this particular case; Wish
to announce--wish to announce, anyway, Gentlemen--" She tipped
suddenly. Clark caught her and restored her balance.
"My error," she laughed, "she--stoops to--stoops to--anyways--We'll
drink to Jelly-bean ... Mr. Jim Powell, King of the Jelly-beans."
And a few minutes later as Jim waited hat in hand for Clark in the
darkness of that same corner of the porch where she had come
searching for gasolene, she appeared suddenly beside him.
"Jelly-bean," she said, "are you here, Jelly-bean? I think--" and her
slight unsteadiness seemed part of an enchanted dream--"I think you
deserve one of my sweetest kisses for that, Jelly-bean."
For an instant her arms were around his neck--her lips were pressed to
his.
"I'm a wild part of the world, Jelly-bean, but you did me a good turn."
Then she was gone, down the porch, over the cricket-loud lawn. Jim
saw Merritt come out the front door and say something to her
angrily--saw her laugh and, turning away, walk with averted eyes to his
car. Marylyn and Joe followed, singing a drowsy song about a Jazz
baby.
Clark came out and joined Jim on the steps. "All pretty lit, I guess," he
yawned. "Merritt's in a mean mood. He's certainly off Nancy."
Over east along the golf course a faint rug of gray spread itself across
the feet of the night. The party in the car began to chant a chorus as the
engine warmed up.

"Good-night everybody," called Clark.
"Good-night, Clark."
"Good-night."
There was a pause, and then a soft, happy voice added,
"Good-night, Jelly-bean."
The car drove off to a burst of singing. A rooster on a farm across the
way took up a solitary mournful crow, and behind them, a last negro
waiter turned out the porch light, Jim and Clark strolled over toward
the Ford, their, shoes crunching raucously on the gravel drive.
"Oh boy!" sighed Clark softly, "how you can set those dice!"
It was still too dark for him to see the flush on Jim's thin cheeks--or to
know that it was a flush of unfamiliar shame.

IV
Over Tilly's garage a bleak room echoed all day to the rumble and
snorting down-stairs and the singing of the negro washers as they
turned the hose on the cars outside. It was a cheerless square of a room,
punctuated with a bed and a battered table on which lay half a dozen
books--Joe Miller's "Slow Train thru Arkansas," "Lucille," in an old
edition very much annotated in an old-fashioned hand; "The Eyes of
the World," by Harold Bell Wright, and an ancient prayer-book of the
Church of England with the name Alice Powell and the date 1831
written on the fly-leaf.
The East, gray when Jelly-bean entered the garage, became a rich and
vivid blue as he turned on his solitary electric light. He snapped it out
again, and going to the window rested his elbows on the sill and stared
into the deepening morning. With the awakening of his emotions, his
first perception was a sense of futility, a dull ache at the utter grayness

of his life. A wall had sprung up suddenly around him hedging him in,
a wall as definite and tangible as the white wall of his bare room. And
with his perception of this wall all that had been the romance of his
existence, the casualness, the light-hearted improvidence, the
miraculous open-handedness of life faded out. The Jelly-bean strolling
up Jackson Street humming a lazy song, known at every