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Show Tfe V&f&isMs-gg Mem SYNOPSIS n,i( of uniform, nt the end of k World wr, with the rank 1 ,,nr Peter DeWollV, young ' '! ,' of wealth ami family. reed by an Knfillsh comrade " ?1 lSversby Henhnm, to visit 'I. BeiihHm homo and meet the irishman's mother and Bilcr. , incidentally, Hrena belooss. " woman about whom there air of myery. Muriel Ben-f" Ben-f" Eversby'B sister, becomes Sualed with Voter, but he is L' na Selcoss, of whom he has only a Kllmose. Muriel urse, tn forcet her, varnmR him f'"', if he li:ren:0 shou'.d like iim he is in danBer of "van.sh-?',llk "van.sh-?',llk the others.' Peter Bets phone message from Hrena to ,l her. Peter meets l.rena ln " tea room and the meeting renin re-nin In the formation of a strong ;nnri o! friendship. After a few S' companionship the feeling wiweeli Peter and Brena ripens into love. He asks her to marry iim and she confesses that she Is married and that her husband lms vanished." CHAPTER V Continued 5 The first time lie ever saw Bi-enit ,eic0s was one morning when lie h:id ' oe back from a vacation of several eeks at some ranch among the pecan ,rees in Coleman. His vacations had kecome a mystery to other young men o were employed ; all that appeared nectarv as for Jim to go to Comp-lon Comp-lon parmalee and tell him when he tPUld be back. It was ascribed to his jripe quality of persuasion. Some cjiJ that if Hennepin smiled and ,sted in Ills inviting, breathless manner man-ner there would be no surprise to find that the President of Uie United States had allowed him to take the whole of Haska under the Homestead act. And yet, though no one in Dallas then inew it, this was the man of unchecked un-checked wild youth, who had beaten a train conductor almost lifeless ln the Baltimore station and had killed his riding horse with a stone held In his stroDg young hand. Brena was sitting at an early breakfast break-fast when he came ln. He did not peak to her; he merely stared. After a while, without taking his eyes away from her, he put his gun, his coat and Ms bag into a chair behind him. He still gazed at her and she, astonished, aston-ished, gazed back. He suggested Apollo; lie suggested vaguely the sudden sud-den appearance of the fairy prince. He was giving an exhibition of his supreme su-preme rudeness his almost majestic and memorable insolence ; but it was also a supreme compliment, the best he knew how to bestow. "Well," said he at last. "It's spring-due." spring-due." He spoke as if he had been a messenger mes-senger from Destiny, as if spring were Brum's time and that time had come. It was like a sentence of a court. With a quirk about the corners of his mouth, he walked boldly toward her and looked down into the dish of cereal on the table beneath' her eyes. "Nothing but milk," said he. "No, G d, you shan't have milk on your ' rife! It's an outrage. You are the mung queen and I am the captain of lle palace guards. And I'm off in a Iwrowed motorcar to get you the richest, rich-est, thickest pint of cream in the city, mil the speed laws can't stop me." This absurd young man, with his inlaid in-laid smile, his athlete's body and his t'tinemnry hungers, leaped out down ; ,e steps, into a new touring car in i t'likh lie had come, cut out the muf- 1 't anil was gone. He came back with cream. His aunt - ,;l''l, "Jim, you are crazy." But he was '- l"i crazy. He had an instinct for cre-i cre-i mw romance; he made the illusion i Hihii he wished because he had I'Miitd that adventures, particularly '""se wit" women, failed or succeeded "fording to the distance from the Imiiidruiu world he could lead on as a , fide into the tropical and gaudy-now-s lrMl jungle of Change, i Ho became lirena's knight. He said ;. himself. He told her that for her 10 "template going to work was ab-. ab-. Mml it was an impropriety like feed- American Beauty roses to army umli's. Brena laughed and went to .ork on Monday morning; but Jim '""aepiu had struck the right note "hen he had told her he would be her 0lSl't. She said, "I do like knights "l fr myself, because I am so "'"ilihy." i 's, you burst with lt," he said, "k"ig at her forehead, her throat, Wr rists. "It Is my distraction." Nevertheless I like knights because '7 re knights.". ! 'mi the originator of the knight w' he said. "Somebody has told it was King Arthur or some one e. Mere plagiarism! Come with ' this evening on a ride to Waco." , Je took her everywhere and his . '"at scowled. w-sm'.' sho is on'y seventeen," Mrs. said, panting. Kvere 10ks twenty-five," he nn- BUIU Ut 'at,S n0Where" Sald tlle .,s' 'N'owhere except to scandal." canda?" replied Hennepin yawn-Nonsense! yawn-Nonsense! Also piffle! A man (amp " beililtiful girl around for the Bund ,e,lS"D U'at you'11 we,,r R (,hl" lf "ara if you had one, especially WkPr .been given you by some laiH ' 1ts 3"st a symbol of one's to." t0 have t!,e riSht things. It's !i J' 'hit all, Jim?" e ald, lying Biii,iy. "IVcnnso you haven't the money to he married. .Tim," she said, moving hor mouth over so that it looked like a newly punctured pink -opening. She liked to live near Immorality; it gave her vicarious pleasure. She had a magazine picture of a certain French actress tacked up beside her looking-glass. looking-glass. She would have been sorry if Hrena had suffered 'misfortune from Jim, but also she would have been glad just as one, though sorry to hear of a distant acquaintance dying, has a thrill of Interest in finding's familiar name In the obituary notices. Hennepin was whimsical enough to repeat to Krena, word for word, this conversation. They were sitting in the motorcar looking out over tho undulating Texas prairie. In the hollows the red bud was in bloom and the air of dusk was like the light, velvety. "It never occurred to her that I might love you," he said. Brena said nothing. "Don't you love me a little?" he asked. "I don't know .Tim ronllir T know. I don't know what love Is. I've only read about "it, and It is just like rending ubout some place you've never been. I wouldn't know when I had arrived ar-rived there and stood on the very spot." "My G d, you're like a new flower, opened up for the first time and wet with dew !" As if he could not conceal haste, he seized her hand and squeezed lt until she said, "Oh, Jim !" . "Well, you're fond of me?" "Yes. I am, Jim. I'm fond of you." "Perhaps It's because you have no one else to be fond of," he suggested. "I don't know," she told him. "I don't know yet." He looked around at the yellow horizon In the west and shivered. "We aren't by ourselves," he exclaimed ex-claimed with irritation. "Not here in Dallas. We ought to take a trip." "A trip !" said Brena. "How could we take a trip?" "You mean because of money? Well, I'm goiDg to fix that." He smiled craftily. "I've a strangle hold on some money, Brena. I suppose that when I turn up with some real money people peo-ple will say that I dipped into the till or had a rich uncle die. It will be such a novelty to have a roll. But they'll be wrong. I'll get it my own way. And It's coming." "Oh, Jim!" "Money or no1 money, I want you," he said. "Some day I'll make you say you love me." Brena lay awake under a hot roof wondering whether she loved Jim Hen nepin. There was no one to tell her that she did not As the weeks went on she found herself asking where the end would be of day after day of showing perfumed wives of Dallas business men embroidered em-broidered linens at the Porto Rican store, of walking home, sometimes with men staring at her, of trying to find interest in the chocolate fudge minds of girls who did not like to have her around because she talked like a professor and wore the beauty they wished was theirs. It was not clear that Jim was not the one man of all, the prince who stepped out of nothing and held out his hands to her in some kind of miraculous tableau. No one reminded her that she was only seventeen ; she felt that she was as old iSifprf if It Never Occurred to Her That I Might Love You," He Said. as the pyramids, for her reading had made her appear as related to the past. More than anything else some fundamental funda-mental part of her declared that she was as nothing, that whatever she might do or become there could be no disaster, no loss; that she was created to be given away. One dav Jim came home at the ijpon hour. He did not usually come then, and evidently he had not come to have lunch there, for he stood outside the door where his aunt's piggy eyes could not see him, and beckoned to Brena mysteriously. When she had come out onto the porch, he took her hand and led her around the corner of the house. Sh. could always remember the heat of the bh zing sun of noon which flattened It -By- Richard Wasliburn Child (Copyright by E. P. Dutton 4 Co.) (W. N. U. Bervloo) burning upon them as if It were some great wrath. "Look here I" said Jim, with a kind of ferocity In his voice and eyes. "I'm going away. Compton Parmalee won't be in Dallas, and I've an errand to do." "You're so excited, Jim." "Yes, I know. But the time has come. I want to know lf you love me." He did not appear to care much what her answer would be. "I think I do, Jim." "You're willing to take a trip? Brave enough to go to St. Louis alone? To meet me?" "You mean you want to marry me, Jim?" "Why yes, if it turns out all right" "I'll go." "Brave enough?" "I'm not much of a coward, Jim thnr lonot all " "Well, then listen. Here's a hotel. The name Is written on that card. Be there on Friday, the twelfth of the month. I'll be there at four o'eloex. Vou better come the day before. Get a room and don't be frightened." "No, Jim." "Why do you look at me so?" . "Because I have no money now." "That's all right. Here, take this. It's plenty, eh? Don't let any one see it. And you won't say " "Of course not, Jim not anything." "Your hand on that." She put her hand in his. "Why are you going away, Jim?" He looked Into her eyes, and lf Brena had known the world better, she would have seen something of the brutality bru-tality of Jim Hennepin at that moment. mo-ment. "Tell me, Jim." "I've had a call," he said craftily. "If I can tell you when I come for you ln St. Louis you'll say that lt is ail the strangest Well, I've had a call." Brena went to St. Louis. She had not marked the date on her little calendar cal-endar on the bureau ; lt was not necessary neces-sary because she was no't ready to forget for-get and besides some one might ask her a question. Some one might have asked why she went And she could not have told. CHAPTER VI Brena Selcoss returned from St. Louis on the sixteenth of the month. The train arrived ln Dallas in the early morning when the night prairie inu v, no oiin uul one SJJCUI Uie last dollar in her purse to be driven to Mrs. Wilkle's in one of the old city station hacks. "WTell !" said the round landlady, exploding ex-ploding the breath from her little mouth to express astonishment, Inquiry In-quiry and disapproval all at once. "Yes, I came back," Brena replied, lifting her suitcase up the steps wearily. wear-ily. "I thought I was going to lose all my nice young people," Mrs. Wllkle said, turning on the disk record of her false good nature. "Jim Hennepin went with hardly a thank you. There's been no end of mall for him. I didn't know where he'd gone; he made such a mystery mys-tery about lt, so I sent the letters to his office. They probably know about him more than I do. He didn't tell you where he went?" "No," said Brena, "he didn't tell me." "And not a word from him. Not so much as a picture post card." Brena was trying In pass around the hulk of the older woman. "And you went off yourself without much explanation," Mrs. Wllkle complained, com-plained, putting herself In the way, "and without knowing whether or not you was coming back." She looked all over the girl from head to foot with an expression ln her beady eyes indicating that it would have been better if a legal guardian had been appointed for Brena. "Well, I'm here." "So I see. Have you had breakfast?" break-fast?" "I don't want any," replied Brena. She went up to her room under the roof where, upon the bedspread were the dust marks made by her suitcase when she had thrown lt up to pack six dnys before. She put it back on those marks as lf a round of life had been .( jipleted. Then she got up to cross '.he room to the picture of the Acropolis Acropo-lis her father's picture, the last possession pos-session of the family. For a long time, too, she looked at this engraving In Its travel-battered frame a relic of Demetrius De-metrius Selcoss. "He said not to be afraid," she told herself. "He snid something would come if I were In danger." Downstairs at about that same moment mo-ment Mrs. Wllkle was writing In her diary. At one time in her life she had acquired the fancy that the memoirs of women often were important the original sources of historical facts and the mirror of society of a period and the diary habit kept its grip upon her long after she had ceased to say-to say-to herself, "Think what it would have meant lf Madame de Maintenon had kept a diary !" Now she wrote In the same hasty, our-of-hreath style with which she conducted all life leaving out pronouns and writing sentences. "Went shopping. Saw Bertha. Said her husband's teeth kept her awake getting hot water bottle." She poised her fountain pen and wrote: "Brena Selcoss returned today from St. Louis. Said she had errand there. There Is a frightened look ln her eyes." A drop of ink fell and spattered out. She blotted lt and left the outline of a little black fiend which danced upon the page. It may have been true that Brena had In her great dark eyes a frightened look, but there was nothing to show-panic show-panic in her conduct For a girl who was not yet eighteen she exhibited a great deal .of common sense. She went to the Porto Eican shop and asked for her old position. It was given to her and life was renewed again ln a pulsing puls-ing monotony of that slightly soiled middle-class respectable vulgarity which appeared to Brena as infinitely more sordid than the squalor of slums or the crises of passionate crimes. That she was a part of this dull brown cheapness, surrounded by virtuous and smug persons who lived contentedly content-edly without Ideas or taste in a round 1 of Interest in such things as strawberry straw-berry festivals, new hats, pink celluloid cellu-loid hair receivers, Sunday newspapers, newspa-pers, half pounds of chocolates, card For a Long Time She Looked at This Engraving In Its Travel-Battered Frame a Relic of Demetrius Selcoss. Sel-coss. games, etiquette, napkin-rings, the domestic do-mestic lives of actresses and royalty, souvenir spoons, picture postal cards, itualism, and decorated sentiments or vulgarities framed for the wall, was an anomaly like planting a peony among the cabbages. But Brena, conscious of this, found herself wondering whether every human hu-man being did not have the feeling that he or she was a gem in an Inferior Infe-rior setting. Her mother's sense of humor was in her and she saw her escape not by fluttering at the walls but by climbing over them. Even at seventeen, no doubt her face had begun be-gun to take on that calm of centuries with its tenderness and patience and wlstfulness and understanding as if she carried eternal hopes and bore the sufferings of all mankind ; lt was only her mother's sense of humor that thrust its light through this mountainous moun-tainous and heroic expression. Later the punctuation of fear, expressed only through her eyes, had become a characteristic Interruption. Mrs. Wllkle often mentioned the journey to St. Louis. She would have given Brena a week's board to know why the girl had gone, but even Mrs. Wllkle sensed some quality in this beautiful child which made her a creature crea-ture of a different species and filled others with a sense of awe from which only Jim Hennepin had been exempt ; she never pressed her questions be- yond a point where she found herself, her-self, looking into the wondering, dark Selcoss eyes. Brena kept her own knowledge without an effort ; it was done with a magnificent restraint and with the suggestion that she who until that year had navigated life not at all would hereafter navigate It for a long time without another's hand upon the tiller. Brena even asked twice whether Hennepin hud written. She chose moments mo-ments when the two other women boarders and the accountant of the Southern Pacific were at the table. "Written !" said Mrs. Wilkie, puckering puck-ering her little mouth as If she were going to whistle her sentence. "Written? "Writ-ten? Not he! But I might expect that; I have never found that I could expect gratitude from anybody." She looked at each face at the table severely. "But that's nothing," she added. "His own father, who Is dying of Bright's, hasn't heard from him not for three months." "Oh," said Brena as If reflecting and weighing the matter. She left the table, anu going Into the front room, she played in lively time upon the piano there a piano with a sheeny red case and with a tone intended to be the startling opposite of the tin-pan attributes of old pianos. This one had tones extravagantly round like the softness of an elocutionist reading poetry. Brena had remembered this piano and described Its affectation. It was nothing to her iiiat those who heard her play on It said. "Oh! She makes It talk," for they were the same persons who said, "What beautiful flowers I They're like wax !" Brena at the piano that evening felt as she always felt, that she was alone in the world the friend of certain dogs nud cats which lived ln houses along tt-e way home from work. She had gro-n accustomed to this loneliness loneli-ness and was nearly convinced subconsciously sub-consciously that lt would go on forever. for-ever. Within sight there was nothing which might break Into lt and she had no pangs because of that. She set her face toward tomorrows. She might have been expected, therefore, to be startled when the past broke ln upon her. It came ln the form of Compton Parmalee. Brena had been writing In her Jiot room under the roof. It was still hot, although the Texas fall had come and Brena, with her sleeves rolled back from her shapely young arms with their cream-colored skin, had been bending over her little table trying to set down ln the form of a written drama the story of the one other girl who virnrliorl niw lr tho Pnrtn Rbfln Embroidery store. The story was not as dramatic a story as It may have appeared to Brena at seventeen. Nor could Brena have written a play because be-cause she had no knowledge whatever of the craft of writing plays, which she later found out is a matter of skilled carpentry and not inspired, as Brena had conceived lt. For all of this she now asks to be forgiven, since everyone, usually in extreme youth, writes a play and nearly everyone, as Brena, startled and surprised at the secret labor, thrusts the manuscript Into a drawer when a knock comes. It was Mrs. Wllkle. "Well I" she ' said, exploding her usual astonishment, Inquiry and disapproval dis-approval in one puffed word. Brena smiled. "You better put yourself to rights !" said the landlady, holding the edge of the varnished yellow door. "You better dress your best 1 You've got a caller." "To see me?" "Yes, to see you. And such a caller! It's Mr. Parmalee!" Brena stiffened. She asked : "What does he want to see me for?" "I don't know," Mrs. Wilkie admitted. admit-ted. "I certainly wish I did. He has oodles of money I He speculated during dur-ing this year and he's made a fortune for-tune I" "I will go down Just as I am," said Brena calmly and firmly. "I do not care about his fortune, Mrs. Wilkie. I w ant to find out what he wants of me." Compton Parmalee did not appear nt nil nmriniin tn nnv vohnt ho u-ontwl He was a small, wiry man, careful of his dress, who above everything else was self-contained. He thrust his glances. As Brena Selcoss came in the door he thrust a glance at her and then looked up at rtie ceiling as if his mind was digesting that which his gray eyes had photographed. As she came toward him inquiringly, he rose, thrust another glance at her and looked out the window considering. When she stopped he thrust once more and sat down looking at the carpet car-pet Everyone who ever knew Compton Comp-ton Parmalee will remember the characteristic char-acteristic inspection of that daring speculator. "Are you Miss Selcoss?" he asked, as if now that he was able to fasten his gaze upon her, he found it improbable im-probable that the girl he saw in all her freshness of youth was the girl he had come to see. "Yes," he said. Parmalee had come to Texas from the desert country of southern California Cali-fornia when he was twenty-six. He knew that country well. In his years ln Dallas, acting as a cotton commission commis-sion man and commodity gambler, he had collected a large and valuable library about the whole historic Southwest, its Indian tribes, the Pueblos, Pueb-los, the strange customs and secrets of savage men carrying some of the traits and traditions of prehistoric Aztecs, Az-tecs, and the Jesuit missionaries. It was said by some persons that his quiet ways were a veneer put on by some studious years in Berkeley at the university, but rumor had It that Parmalee with his rather pale, young face that made him look thirty lnstend of forty-three, his small, well-shaped hands, his immaculate linen, his soft voice, had once shot a man across a roulette table which he himself owned and operated. That he was ever a man of violence is very doubtful. Ho was an unqulv-ering unqulv-ering gambler, but not with his personal per-sonal safety ; his personal safety was his principal concern. He wore gloves on all occasions to keep the germs off his hands; he had his massive mahogany ma-hogany desk, ln the office building across from the new hotel, wiped down every morning with an antiseptic; antisep-tic; long years before the practice hud become a worthy fashion he hud himself him-self examined periodically by specialists. special-ists. He was always fearing contagion. conta-gion. He gargled. He snuffed. He sprayed. He read medical Journals. He feared cancer above all other things. He loved his life so much that he had loved no woman for many years; the monopoly of this devotion excluded competition. He loved his his life with an unending passion; ha ruined it by fearing to lose lt (TO BB CONTINUED.) |
