Treasures Read Online Free PDF Page B

he had acne, and it turned me off.”
    And there had been others, like the floor manager in the store back home. That one had been good to look at. But he was flat, without ambition. And all he could talk about was sports.
    The older woman warned, with a shake of her head, “Well, my dear, it’s no good being so fussy, or you’ll find yourself left behind one of these days. Now, I’ve got a nephew I could introduce you to. Big guy, like a football player, and a real gentleman. He drives for an oil company. For real good pay too.”
    The offer was touching, and Connie felt mean to refuse it. I’m not a snob, she thought. It’s not that. I’m not stupid enough for that. It’s just that I’m not going to waste myself. So she lied.
    “Thanks. Maybe some other time, but not now. My landlady’s fixing me up with someone this weekend.”
    Celia Mapes looked at Connie with quizzical eyes as though she had recognized the lie. “You’re pretty as a picture,” she said bluntly, “but if you’re thinking of teaming up with any of the members here, forget it. Money sticks to money, you know.”
    There were a good many young couples among the club’s membership. She wondered how people so young could afford to live as lavishly as this. Had they all inherited their wealth? Her eyes and ears were curious andalert now as she passed among them, observing and catching phrases.
    “There’s really no difference between a Bentley and a Rolls.”
    “Oh, Charlie got these in Athens on my birthday. I adore Greek gold.”
    Connie’s glance went to the brilliant, heavy necklace and the bracelets. Their owner’s flat chest and protruding shoulder blades did nothing, either for them or for her glorious white dress. And the woman’s voice, nasal and raucous, made you shudder.
    Connie’s glance flicked over a suntanned comely face and briefly met frank male compliment in a pair of dark, mischievous eyes. But she had long ago become accustomed to such fleeting admiration. Nothing ever came of it.
    As the months passed, the job’s first glamor inevitably began to dwindle. And she seemed to be looking down a long, long road with a dead end.
    At the same time in New York, Eddy had been climbing with no shortness of breath, a long, easy hill. He and his partner, Pete Brock, bolstered by Pete’s uncle, had been advancing steadily, amassing both brokerage accounts and social contacts.
    “It’s a case,” Pete said as the two young men sat in their office late one Friday afternoon, “of which comes first, the chicken or the egg. The guy you meet on the tennis court becomes your customer, and your satisfied customer invites you to play at his club. Not bad for a pair of immigrants from Ohio, is it?”
    “Not bad at all,” Eddy replied.
    But not remarkably good either. Leaning back in the swivel chair, he surveyed the office, which consisted of four decently furnished rooms in a mediocre 1920s building, on a dingy street halfway between the garment district and the theater district. Pete’s uncle owned the building, and so the rent was cheap. There was nothing wrong at all with the setup if one was content with security and a modest living. Obviously, Pete Brock was.
    “I have to tell you something,” Eddy said. “It’s something I’ve been waiting to say and putting off because I feel a certain guilt about it.”
    “Why? What have you done? Been sleeping with my secretary?”
    “I’m not kidding, Pete. The fact is, I want to leave, I want to leave you. I want to strike out on my own.”
    The other sat up straight. “Hey! I thought we were going along like a house afire! What is it? Anything you don’t like about me? Give me the truth, Eddy. On the level.”
    “On the level. You’re my friend, Pete, and I don’t want you to think for one split second that I don’t appreciate a thousand times over, that I’m not completely grateful, that I don’t know how lucky I am that you and your uncle—what a fine, generous