NOCTURNE AT THE MAJESTIC - Tales of the Five Towns

Page 94 of 104

She felt that she was about to enter upon the true and only vocation of a dainty little morsel--namely, to spend money earned by other people. She thought less homicidally now of the thirteen chorus-girls of the previous night.

'Say,' said her father, 'I sail this afternoon for New York, Nina.'

'They said you'd gone, at the hotel.'

'Only my baggage. The _Minnehaha_ clears at five. I guess I want you to come along too. On the voyage we'll get acquainted, and tell each other things.'

'Suppose I say I won't?'

She spoke despotically, as the pampered darling should.

'Then I'll wait for the next boat. But it'll be awkward.'

'Then I'll come. But I've got no things.'

He pushed up the trap-door.

Driver, Bond Street. And get on to yourself, for goodness' sake! Hurry!'

'You told me not to hurry,' grumbled the cabby.

'And now I tell you to hustle. See?'

'Shall you want me to call myself Belmont?' Nina asked.

'I chose it because it was a fine ten-horse-power name twenty years ago,' said her father; and she murmured that she liked the name very much.

As Lionel Belmont the Magnificent paid the cabman, and Nina walked across the pavement into one of the most famous repositories of expensive frippery in the world, she thrilled with the profoundest pleasure her tiny soul was capable of. Foolish, simple Nina had achieved the _nec plus ultra_ of her languorous dreams.

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		Lack of money is the root of all evil. George Bernard Shaw