"My girl's beau-ful cheeks all warm and full of some danged good cologne," said Mr. Connors, closing the door of their rooms upon them, pressing her head back against the support of his arm, and kissing her throat as the chin flew up.
He pressed a button, and the room sprang into more light, coming out pinkly and vividly--the brocaded walls pliant to touch with every so often a gilt-framed engraving; a gilt table with an onyx top cheerfully cluttered with the sauciest short-story magazines of the month; a white mantelpiece with an artificial hearth and a pink-and-gilt _chaise-longue_ piled high with small, lacy pillows, and a very green magazine open and face downward on the floor beside it.
"I dunno, Babe. The town's mad with money, but I don't feel myself going crazy with any of it."
He slid out of his silk-lined greatcoat, placing his brown derby atop.
"Three guesses, Babe," he said, rubbing his cold hands in a dry wash, and smiling from five feet eleven of sartorial accomplishment down upon her.
"Honey darlin'!" said Mrs. Connors, standing erect and placing her cheek against the third button of his waistcoat.
"Wow! how I love the woman!" he cried, closing his hands softly about her throat and tilting her head backward again.
When Mr. Connors moved, he gave off the scent of pomade freely; his slightly thinning brown hair and the pointy tips to a reddish mustache lay sleek with it. There was the merest suggestion of _embonpoint_ to the waistcoat, but not so that, when he dropped his eyes, the blunt toes of his russet shoes were not in evidence. His pin-checked suit was pressed to a knife-edge, and his brocaded cravat folded to a nicety; there was an air of complete well-being about him. Men can acquire that sort of eupeptic well-being in a Turkish bath. Young mothers and life-jobbers have it naturally.
Suddenly, Mrs. Connors began to foray into his pockets, plunging her hand into the right, the left, then stopped suddenly, her little face flashing up at him.
"It's round and furry--my honeybunch brought me a peach! Beau-ful pink peach in December! Nine million dollars my hubby pays to bring him wifey a beau-ful pink peach." She drew it out--a slightly runty one with a forced blush--and bit small white teeth immediately into it.