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Show O Mfhesc Hhrcc ovcs by Louis Arthur Cunningham to listen, starry-eyed, to Jaffry Clay's verse and I thought I was in heaven and that i anything happened to destroy that heaven I'd die; I'd never be the same. Then something did happen and the heaven proved to be only crystal crys-tal and it was smashed into a million mil-lion bits and grains and then stamped upon. And I survived. She put on a well-worn jacket of buff-colored tweed and went out. On the stairs she whistled and a white collie came running to meet her in the lower hall. (To Be Continued) a chance. Then she came here to visit and she met David, your father. fa-ther. She was happy, Gil only a little while, though but so happy. hap-py. She loved." He turned towards the door. "You'll think that's a lot of sentimental sen-timental twaddle, I suppose, Gillian. Gil-lian. I was waiting for you to say, 'Stop, Anse, you're breaking my heart.' Probably it does belong to another day." "It's very sweet, Anse," said Gillian softly. "Sweet and fragrant and dear like something kept in lavender for a long, long time. Darling Anse! Don't worry about me. I'll be all right" "Good luck. Gillian. All the luck in the world." He went out. She listened to his uneven stiff-legged step along the hall. She had always loved Anse. Always, she and Deborah had played play-ed a grand, serious game with Anse, pretending he was the stern uncle, that his will was carried out in everything and his word was law. Really, it never was. Presently Present-ly she woud have Anse thinking that he had arranged for Eer to marry Jonathan Hillyer and that it was quite the best thing to do. As it is, she thought determinedly. determin-edly. Love is all very well. I used CHAPTER I There was one little crimson splotch against the green wall of Rydal Wood, a gay flamboyant jaunty pennon fluttering from the first lance of the Autumn's vanguard. van-guard. Always it saddened Gillian Meade, that little maple, proclaiming proclaim-ing so valiantly among the hosts of green that soon now, soon, the mightier hosts of the Autumn would be advancing. Then all the green army would fade and drop its tattered pennons and the wind would roar and whistle around the ancient gables of Rydal House. Sadness always came to Gillian with the end of summer. Not that there had been much joy this - year; certainly not at Rydal House, that had belonged to the Meades for well over a century and had been, too, a good house to them, for scarcely one of the family had spent a dollar on its upkeep. The ones who could spend wouldn't; the ones like Gillian, who would, never seemed to have a dollar. Right now there was a quarter and some smaller change in the j pocket of Gillian's faded fawn i riding breeches. And that was about all she owned in the way of worldly wealth. The other Meades, Colonel Anse and young Deborah, wouldn't be much more affluent. This week-end, though, Gillian thought, would see all that remedied. "And you" she spoke almost caressingly to the age-darkened, age-darkened, beamed ceilings of Rydal Ry-dal House, "you will get some long-needed attention. And you" she spoke to the stables "will have new tenants for those empty boxes. And you ' she spoke to the willow-slender red-headed girl with the high cheek bones and deep blue eyes, who looked attentively at-tentively at her from the long mirror on the closet door "you, Gillian Meade, will have Patou models and mink coats and diamonds dia-monds and oh, come in!" The door of Gillian's sun-bright room opened and Colonel Anselm Meade came stiffly in. The room had a great dormer window and hangings of gay yellow chintz, a bit faded; and a yellow rug with little red flowers, and a white bed and dresser and dozens of photo- it going." She came over to him and slipped slip-ped her arm about his neck and kissed him on the leathery cheek. "You're pretty splendid, Uncle. you were, of course. With whom?" "With with your mother. You see" Anse shook his head. "I met her first and I thought I had i and some of them were big shots in the stock market. All that's left now is the infant Deborah, concerned con-cerned with clothes and sweethearts, sweet-hearts, the grown-up Gillian, who is quite useless." "You're not useless, Gillian." The old soldier looked fondly at her. "You're a real trump girl a trump. Real stuff in you real, solid, gritty stuff in you, Gil." She shook her head. "I don't know where it is, Anse. I'm soft. I've had it easy all my life. A great house, fine clothes, servants, ser-vants, motors a grand life, and I've loved it and I've hated to see it slipping, slipping away. Do you know what I was doing just before be-fore you came in? I was making up my mind. Come here, sir." She took Anse by the bony arm and led him, tall, gaunt, towering above her. Anse's gaze was steady on the brown, sweet face on the firm mouth, the upturned nose with its tiny freckles, the high clear forehead, the wide blue eyes with their lashes of a gold darker than the red gold of her hair. "You said you were making up your mind to what?" "To marry." "Ah! And how is that going to " "A man with lots of money more money that the Meades ever had." "You mean Jonathan Hillyer?" "I mean Jonathan Hillyer. You know what it will mean. New life for Rydal House, new life for us all. We're going to have money. Is there anything wrong about my marying Jon Hillyer? He wants me. He can have me. He can pay for me." "Gillian!" She turned from the window to which, half angrily, she had gone, and a long yellow sun shaft streamed suddenly in and burnished burnish-ed her rippling hair. Even so, Anselm remembered, had her mother, mo-ther, Gillian Crandall, looked, when long ago she had told Anselm An-selm Meade she loved his' brother. bro-ther. "What do you want to say to me, Anse?" "I want to ask you a question my dear. I want you, for once, not to laugh at me. Oh, I know as well as you how we've got by these last few years. Bills mountains high, bills never paid. I know all that. I know you can end it by marriage with Jonathan Hillyer, an eminently emin-ently practical and desirable match. There is only one thing. It brings me to the question: "Do you love him?" "How should I know?" Gillian! Don't you want to see me sell myself my-self for filthy lucre? Don't worry. wor-ry. I've thought it all out. I've been in love I think that's what you'd call it a number of times. Once notably. You remember Jaffry Jaff-ry Clay, Anse? Everybody does. Drank himself to death for love of Gillian Meade, ruined his young life, destroyed his youth for a woman wo-man who " "Stop it!" Anse shook her roughly until the flaring nostrils, the wide eyes, the distorted mouth, the signs of hysteria, gave way to serenity and repose. She said, "Sorry, Anse. It's the old story, you know. It makes a good story. Some smart-alec journalist even made capital of it because Jaffry Clay was a poet. Was that love Anse? That was a lie and a cruel, ugly thing. I'll have no more of that." "Let's not talk of it, Gillian. Some of us can guess at the truth, even if you will never say what happened between you and Clay. I won't talk to you of love any more. You know what you're doing, do-ing, my dear I hope you do. But you're so young, and so splendid. splen-did. I hate to think that you might make a mess of your life. Do these things mean so much to you, these things that require a lot of money?" "They're all I know, Anse. All I've ever known. What else is there?" He thought of David, her father, fa-ther, killed in France. She had scarcely known him; of Gillian Crandall, carried, white-faced and broken, from the hunting field, to linger for a .few months then go; of the two frightened little ones, Gillian and Deborah, and of himself, him-self, their guardian. He had tried after his rough . fashion, tried graphs. There was one of Colonel Anse in his uniform as an officer of the Princess Pat's, with heaps of medals and whatnot adorning his broad front. Gillian picked it up from its place of honor on the little white spinet desk and looked from it to the faded original. "My j dream man," she whispered. "Darling "Dar-ling Anselm in the flesh and he hasn't changed a bit!" "Hasn't he!" One of Colonel Anse's legs was a bit stiff because it was made of wood, but he was straight and hard as oak and he crossed the yellow rug with the red flowers quite as if it were a parade group and glared at Gillian as if she were the newest recruit, with her tunic on backwards. "Do you know what Hawtry told me just now when I told him to bring me a whiskey and soda?" Gillian shook her head and the red bob showered off golden lights like a myriad of little cascades leaping in a crimson sunset. "What did Hawtry tell you, Anse?" "That there's no whiskey. When I told him to get some, he said he couldn't." "And shall I tell you why, Anse?" Gillian cocked her head at him. "Because there's no money." "That's it. Very good indeed Gillian." Anse slapped his thigh! "I always said you had the brains of the Meades. That's it exactly! No money those were the words Hawtry used. Money's all spent, eh?" "All spent, Anse. All we have is Rydal, and once we start to give it for collateral " she shrugged. "But Gillian, we have to have money. Meades have always had money. Maybe too much money." He grinned a wry grin. "That's so, Anse. But, as you well know, Anse, they had factories factor-ies too and maybe an odd brewery. hedged. "Anyway, Anse, why bring that up? Do you think it's so important? How many marriages mar-riages have it, after all, when tire first blush has worn off and he begins to notice the eggs aren't done right and the toast is burnt?" "You're not answering me, Gillian." Gil-lian." Poor old Anse, standing there like a grenadier and talking like a convent girl. Love what had love to do with this?" "Is it so monstrous not to love the man you marry? You look like an accusing prophet, Anse. You make me feel, almost, that I'm about to commit a sin." "I don't mean to Gillian." Anse looked suddenly ti'red, looked all of the sixty he admitted. "It's just that I don't want you to be unhappy, un-happy, don't want you To let yourself your-self in for anything just because you think the show has to go on and this is the only way to keep hard, but somewhere along the road he had failed. There had been lots of money until a few years ago, then suddenly there had been scarcely any, and he was too old, too broken, to do anything any-thing about it. And here was Gillian Gil-lian "I'm going to a week-end party at Jon Hillyer's lodge, Anse. He's going to ask me to marry him. He told me so. You know Jon Hillyer Hill-yer shipyards, drydocks, gold mines, more money than he can count. He's not so young, but neither nei-ther is he old and fat. And there's not a girl in our set who wouldn't jump through the hoop for him. I'm the one he's chosen." "I suppose it's the best thing Gil " She glanced up at Anselm and all the raillery went out of her. She had never seen him look so old. "Were you ever in love, Anse?" she said softly. "I know |
