Gigolo by Edna Ferber Chapter 8 Page 34

“Read, read! That’s all you do. What’re you reading?”

“Oh, about Italy. La bel Napoli!” She collected travel folders and often talked in their terms. In her mind she always said “brooding Vesuvius”; “blue Mediterranean”; “azure coasts”; “Egypt’s golden sands.”

Arnold Hatch ate dinner nightly at Pardee’s. He lived in the house next door, which he owned, renting it to an Okoochee family and retaining the upstairs front bedroom for himself. A tall, thin, eye-glassed young man who worked in the offices of the Okoochee Oil and Refining Company, believed in Okoochee, and wanted to marry Maxine. He had twice kissed her. On both these occasions his eyeglasses had fallen off, taking the passion, so to