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Show : srxopsis 1 , -deen, vivacious little "Irti her lather. Keith 'SStortttne. A gentle t. i now employed ' 'ctralst in San Francisco. ulary. His wife, Magda. 'SSf to the change. She ,:i woman, fond of pleasure 3-.et for men's attention ' Tnctoria have been down at -drt and Keith joins them d. Magda leaves for a ' 'V4 excusing herself for be-: be-: .aMway." The Herrendeens ", their small San Francisco ' ' Keith does not approve of social life and they quar-".fly quar-".fly Magda receives flowers ' 'SaW man from Argentina had met less than a week :"j!aaers arrives a few hours 1 ' lai;es Victoria to Nevada to i-ao iriend who has a daughter ' 'Serine. There she tells her , Z to Set a divorce. Victoria I boarding school with her ! V-erine. Magda marries Man-"."ev Man-"."ev spend two years in Argen-! Argen-! r.'oria has studied In Europe ) rrhteen she visits her mother . :Jy rents a beautiful home. , unhappy over Ferdy's drink- ' j-'.entions to other women. Vic-' Vic-' -in. Wben her mother and step-i step-i .rim to South America, Victoria , :i jo with them because of Fer-ielcome Fer-ielcome attentions to her. ; Vurns and tells Vic she and 1 .;.,( separated. Meanwhile Keith : -arried. Victoria is now a stu- ;(. Magda has fallen in love .::us Farmer, a married artist. 5 .a and Vic prepare for a trip t :e, Ferdy takes a suite in :eL The night before Magda ; : are to sail, Magda elopes with ! Firmer. While nursing the chil-! chil-! Dr. and Mrs. Keats, Vic meets , :in Hardisty, a brilliant physi--jth sought after by women, , jidower with a crippled daugh- a tete-a-tete at the Keats home, a Vic. Several days later he :r with other guests to spend a -.! at his cabin. Vic is enchanted ; cabin. Next morning she and . .- ro hiking and return ravenous. ; v; Is disrupted Sunday afternoon r- - arrival of Marian Pool, a di-c di-c ;roman. Vic Is jealous of Mrs. :i a few days later tells Mrs. . ::e is going to Honolulu. In his dentin questions Vic about leav-proposes leav-proposes to her. CHAPTER V-Continued -7- ' -ink you'd better try Ger-: Ger-: ' For a few seconds Victoria .'Sought she had said it. Then :;w that she had said nothing i but that she was looking at '1 her throat dry, and her ' beating hard, and all her :: in wild confusion. "If a man you he could get you," she saying. "H a man wanted itould get you." ;;7 yes, of course," she said he said. "I'll come out it tonight and we'll tell Vi :tay. Good-by, Kate, give ias-that's the girl! No, this ! layout" :r' left him standing there, itecoat, with the little in-at in-at still in his big hand. ; s quiet that evening; quiet days that followed. ' sre but few between the "Jen talk in Quentin's office hour when they two were :l Only Catherine and the ;s witnessed the very simple Victoria, with a smart tMt Md a smaU hat, was ;;ms child, obeying, docile, bewildered. She had ar-.' ar-.' Wentto with a small hand on :?' ?en they went into the stuay; had spoken in ;;and nervousness: :"ln - you're sure, aren't '."okeddown at her with i smile. -;' a;cn't you?" :;lrYes' 1 am," she said ' when the doctor and kissed her, and she and .., ! down beside the :, r' she had another mo-... mo-... solution. 4e E;ng to Mill Valley?" . 50u knew that," Quentin .fcnow" victoria got into i''S-,!i .,be back Monday, u ' throuSh the opened 'nc (Keatses waved; Quen-.. Quen-.. uie engine; they were -eeu,S'y,house on Washing- i f 0ked the Presidio rZn g Unes 0 Pines ' C' reservation, and M the hi" ranges that ate uher Side of the 'Von Te W3S plenty o -4 Vi summer morn- :'''Mrin'0na'S back gden flriPPngwith milky mist. :;"ing of her marriage ;iesSw' She h0pcd t0 be -r.d ro"! appilless' Ifher iho ' nSlbilities in co-yutin co-yutin and Gwen and the house were not suflicient to keep her occupied, then, she threatened, threat-ened, she would positively take on some work for the blind, or for the city's orphanage. But the blind and the orphanage had had no opportunity to experience experi-ence her kindly charity. For from the Sunday night when she and Quentin had ended their thirty-hour honeymoon with a sleepy, slow trip to the city, and had found temporary tempo-rary quarters in a large hotel, there had seemed to be no moment In which Vic, to use her own words, had had time to sit down for five minutes to ask herself whether or not she was happy, whether or not she was glad that she had married as she had. So the first year had flown, and at the end of it Vic had awakened Quentin in the early dawn of a spring morning, and had given him charge of her waiting suitcase and her somewhat silent, frightened self. There had been a hospital then; bright, clean rooms, flat clean beds, everyone telling her that she was behaving splendidly, everyone every-one sure of it except herself. And after a while the realness of all these things, and the city, and Gwen, and the big house and even Quentin had all disappeared into a hot, hurtful fog, and still later, ashamed and bewildered and apologetic, apolo-getic, Vic had gratefully slipped away into nothing just nothing just blackness and oblivion and relief re-lief from the task that was too hard. Then there had been Kenty, and Vic had lain staring at him thoughtfully, thought-fully, thinking not of him but of her mother. "My mother she was so beautiful and young; she must have been so frightened, and she went through all that for me!" After the long struggle she had said to Quentin: "I don't want another an-other baby. This one's darling; I want him. But never another!" But the unexpected ecstasy of having one child, after all, had made the Dossibilitv of having another seem nothing less than a miracle. Susanna Susan-na Hardisty had swiftly followed her brother, and on Susan's second birthday, the crowded Hardisty nursery had been enriched by the arrival of Richard and 'Robert together. to-gether. Even the mother of what she sometimes described as the "Light Infantry" had been temporarily tempo-rarily left breathless and startled by this promptitude. Vic lived now in a world of small beds, small stamping footsteps, small shrill voices. Kenty and Sue, Dick and Bobs had filled her life to overflowing; overflow-ing; she adored them even while she toiled herself into a daily state of exhaustion for their sakes. Quentin meanwhile was busily building up for himself the most important surgical practice in the city. They rarely went to dinner parties. par-ties. Sometimes after their late dinner at home they would slip downtown for some music, for the last acts of a play or the final run of a good film. But almost always al-ways they were at home in the evening, eve-ning, Quentin glad to smoke his pipe, to go early to bed; Vic happi-iest happi-iest when she was within reach of any call from the nursery. Other women laughed at her, perhaps pitied pit-ied her a little. She never pitied herself; she was supremely content. "We like each other," she told him on a certain Sunday morning when they had been six years man and wife, and when an unusual lull in domestic and professional interruptions inter-ruptions had by chance afforded them a lazy hour together. Victoria looked enviously at the comfortable peninsula homes they were passing, for by this time the day had somehow rushed about to one o'clock, and Quentin was driving driv-ing her and the three older children down to Menlo Park. There was a skull fracture to be diagnosed at the hospital, and after that the Har-distys Har-distys would go to lunch with the Gannctts. Mrs. Gannett, whose own doctor husband had summoned Quentin to this emergency case, had hospitably insisted upon the lunch. It needn't be until two o'clock; she had beds upon which the small fry could take their naps; please, please, please come; they never saw the Hardistys any more! They were at the hospital. Vic and the children walked about on the grass while Quentin was inside. Then he came down again, and Dr. Gannett came down, and the Hardistys Har-distys were to follow thy Gannett Ca,rheir way wound up into the hills near Woodside; they were presently being welcomed by Mrs. Gannett on a porch; everything went just as such days always went, doctor nursery talk, spring Sunday talk. Vic was alternately proud of her children and anxiously csPe"' about them; a nurse wa'k-i them away with little Ecis-y O-.nea, and there was lunch, . delicious company lunch with chicken and asparagus and beaten biscuit and strawberries, and several nice neighbors to share it. Then all the men went to play golf on the club links a hundred yards away, and some of the women played contract Victoria played neither, and she and her hostess sat talking together. "Vic, you mean you're that way again!" ' "September. I rather hoped you'd not guess." "Guess! A child in arms would know. How old, in heaven's name, are the twins? Are they a year old yet?" "A year! We've just had our second birthday celebration." "Well, honestly," Mabel Gannett said, "I think it's dreadful! Going in for a perfectly enormous family these days! With Quentin as stunning stun-ning as he is, and all the women mad about him " "Oh, that!" Vicky said indifferently, indiffer-ently, as the other woman paused. And then, just before the Hardistys Har-distys went home at five, the odd thing happened. Victoria had led her troop upstairs up-stairs for last wiping of small faces and buttoning of small coats; these operations well under way, she had gathered Susan under one arm, Susan's brief legs dangling from her hip, and preceded the others oth-ers downstairs, to reassure the waiting wait-ing Quentin as to everybody's being be-ing "just about ready." There was a wide lower hall in the Gannetts' house; a hall now filled with soft late-afternoon light, and empty except for Quentin; the cheerful voices of the hosts, saying farewells, could be heard through the open porch doorway. Victoria had reached the landing and was about to call to Quentin, obviously and patiently awaiting his family, when another person came into the hall. She came from the direction of the dining ' rooms; a slender, graceful woman almost a girl, though the voice was a woman's. wom-an's. It was a voice low with reproach re-proach and pain now, and as she "Mother!" She Said. spoke she put her hand on Quentin's Quen-tin's arm. Victoria, halted on the landing, had an odd feeling of amusement, a surprising feeling that was something like fear, as she watched. - "Quentin," the woman said clearly, clear-ly, but in a low tone, "how can you be so horribly unkind to me?" Victoria saw Quentin look down at her from his big height; saw the good-natured smile in his eyes. "Am I horribly unkind to you?" he asked mildly. "You're killing me!" the woman answered passionately, with a little choke in her voice. "Oh, I wouldn't say that, Josephine," Joseph-ine," Quentin said. "You hate me, I know that!" Josephine Jos-ephine said. "But I can't help it. I have to see you we're going Friday. Fri-day. Yes, he settled it. I didn't. I think he's crazy. But we're going. go-ing. And I have to see you before we go! Will you luncn wun me on Wednesday?" "Operating on old Fuller in Los Angeles. I go down Tuesday night." "You know, I don't believe you, Quentin," ihe woman said with a shrewd look. But instantly her manner man-ner changed and softened. "Oh, don't be unkind to me be kind to me just this once!" she faltered, with unmistakable signs of tears. Victoria, rooted to the landing saw from Quentin's face that he was embarrassed, but he gave no sign of nervousness; he was completely master of the situation. "I don't know what you can have to say to me, my dear," he said, in the kindly masculine look and tone and manner that Victoria that all women loved. "Listen, you're getting get-ting yourself all wrought up, he added. And he put a hand on her shoulder. "Come into the library with me a minute," he suggested. They left the hall together. When they were gone Victoria descended de-scended the remaining stairs and began her thanks and farewells. Almost Al-most immediately the other children, chil-dren, Betsey, the nurse were with her, and within five minutes of her having first glimpsed that tableau the lower hall she and Quentm were on their way home. But t had left its mark, she had to speak nf it the passionate young voice. ?How canPyo be so horribly un kind to me!" was rmsmshLr ears and coloring the Ins.' ' cd spring twilight wi;h r "Quentin, who was the pretty girl at the very end the one in lavender linen?" "Oh, that was Mrs. Billy McGrew. Josephine McGrew she's a nice kid. But nutty!" "She's affectionate, I gather?" Quentin laughed, guiltily, giving his wife a sidewise, shrewd smile. "A little." Victoria said nothing, but her heart was lightened again. It was all so silly! "HowM you know that?" Quentin presently asked, chuckling. "I was on the stairs when she was talking to you in the hall I got the balcony scene." "Caught with the goods, eh?" Quentin asked. "Red-handed." Victoria laughed in relief. "Poor little Jo," the man said, after a peaceful silence. She's aimless, aim-less, she's not very happy with McGrew Mc-Grew he has nothing but money, apparently. She'll get out, some day; she'll quit him cold. She wanted to say good-by to me they're going to Biarritz, they have a place there and she had to tell me that it was all over, and we would always be friends and all that!" "What was all over?" "Well, exactly. Nothing!" He laughed heartily, engineering the car through the complicated turnings of Daly City, and Victoria was silent for a while. Victoria laughed, her fears all laid to rest. The five children were uproarious in the nursery at supper time; their long sleeps in the car coming home had refreshed them, and they were full of life and mischief. The nursery was full of noises and thumps; the children's laughter ringing high above every other . sound. Mollie brought Dicky to his father. "There's one that'll take all the loving you want to give him," she said, and Quentin sat holding the quieter twin, loving the serious exploratory glance that Dicky occasionally oc-casionally sent over his shoulder, as one who would be sure that these big arms, these big knees were auite safe. "I thought a girl war always gentler gen-tler than a boy," . Quentin said. "I knew you'd break that, Kenty!" he interrupted himself. "You jerk it, and then Susan jerks it; why don't you wait until you want to use it?" "There's nothing gentle about Susan," Su-san," Vicky said, the broken cord already mended. Bobs, the other twin, having finished his entire dinner din-ner with scrupulous attention and thoroughness, now came to climb up beside Dicky. Gwen was animatedly ani-matedly demanding if Daddy would like to see her new dress for dancing danc-ing school. "Somehow I never thought I'd hear you talking about dancing school, Gwen," Quentin said, his arms full of nightgowned small boys, but his forehead held up for Gwen's suddenly affectionate kiss. "Oh, but you know I limp. Daddy?" Dad-dy?" the little girl reminded him animatedly. "I kin limp!" Susan shouted with the usual accent on the personal pronoun. And she gave an exag gerated imitation of a cripple's gait to Gwen's immense delight. "She walks just as if it hurt her, Mother!" Moth-er!" exclaimed Gwen. After a while, Quentin, with the sureness of long practice, slid the sleeping twins into cribs and left Victoria reading. Victoria called after him: "When you've made your telephone tele-phone calls, Quentin, see if you can get Dora, and find out how Dorothy is, and remind the Findleysons that they're coming to supper. Tell Billy not to dress, and say to Sally that of course if her father's with her we want him, too!" ' "And shake the hall rug and see if there's any mail," the doctor added. But he was grinning as he went downstairs. About an hour later, when a party of six had just harmoniously settled down to Sunday's cold supper there was an interruption. It began with a ring at the doorbell, but that was nothing in a doctor's household; nor was Meta's appearance a moment later. What was unusual was the appearance of the woman who followed fol-lowed Meta; the sound of her voice. For a moment Vic didn't know the voice at all, or the little tinkle of high laughter, or the person in the lace-edged hat and frilly silk coat, frilly blouse, frilly sweeping skirts who stood there. Then the whole world turned upside down and she got to her feet and tried to speak, but couldn't hear her own voice and tried again with better luck. "Mother!" she said. "My dear, the proverbial bad penny!" pen-ny!" Mrs. Herrendeen laughed, coming in to sit down at the chair Quentin provided, and looking about the circle gayly. "Well, you're having hav-ing a party!" she said. She was introduced, all the voices spoke together to-gether cordially. (TO BE COSTIMT-D) |
