OCR Text |
Show f TH E BALL OF FIR E j By GEORGE RANDOLPH CHESTER ? and LILLIAN CHESTER S 1 ILLUSTRATED BY C. D. RHODES 1 1 1 - " K - W W W M ( W- W H w W W MM (Copyright, 1914. by the Red Book Corporation.) CHAPTER I. ! No Place for Sentiment. Silence pervaded the dim old aisles of the Market Square church; the winter win-ter sun, streaming through the clerestory clere-story windows, cast, on the floor and on the vacant benches, patches of roby and sapphire, of emerald and of topaz, these seeming only to accentuate accentu-ate the dimness and the silence. In that silence the vestry door creaked, it opened wide, and it was as if a vision had suddenly been set there! Bathed in the golden light from the transept window, brown-haired, brown-haired, brown-eyed, rosy-cheeked, stood a girl who might have been one of the slender stained-glass virgins come to life, the golden light flaming the edges of her hair Into an aureole. She stood timidly, peering into the dimness, and on her beautifully curved lips was a half questioning smile. VUncle Jim," she called, and there was some quality In her low voice which was strangely attractive, and disturbing. "By George, Gail, I forgot that you were to come for me!" said Jim Sargent, Sar-gent, rising from amid the group of men in the dim transept. "We'll be through in a few minutes. Allison, you were about to prove something to us, I think." "Prove is the right word," agreed the stockily built man who had evidently evi-dently been addressing the vestry. He was acutely conscious of the presence of 'Gail, as they all were. "Your rector rec-tor suggests that this is a matter of sentiment. You are anxious to have fifty million dollars to begin the erection erec-tion of a cathedral; but I came here to talk business, and that only. Granting Grant-ing you the full normal appreciation of your Vedder Court property, and the normal increase of your aggregate rentals, you cannot have, at the end of ten years, a penny over forty-two millions. I vm prepared to offer you, in cash, a sum which will, at three and a half per cent, and in ten years, produce that exact amount. To this I add two million." . "How much did you allow for increase in-crease in the value of the property?" asked Nicholas Van Ploon, whose only knowledge for several generations had been centered on this one question. The original Van Ploon had bought a vast tract of Manhattan for a dollar an acre, and, by that stroke of towering tower-ing genius, had placed the family of Van Ploon, for all eternity, beyond the necessity of thought. For answer, Allison passed him the envelope upon which he had been figuring, fig-uring, checking off an item as he did so. He noticed that Gail's lips twitched with suppressed mirth. She turned abruptly to look back at the striking transept window,' and the three vestrymen in the rear pew immediately im-mediately sat straighter. Willis Cunningham, Cun-ningham, who was a bachelor, hastily smoothed his Vandyke. He was so rich, by inheritance, that money meant nothing to him. "Not enough," grunted Van Ploon, handing back the envelope and twisting twist-ing again in the general direction of Gail. "Ample," retorted Allison. "You can't count anything for the buildings. While I don't deny that they yield the richest income of any property in the city, they are the most decrepit tenements in New York. They'll fall down in less than ten years. You have them propped up now." Jim Sargent glanced solicitously at Gail, but she did not seem to be bored; not a particle! "They are passed by the building inspector annually," pompously stated I W. T. Chisholm, his mutton chops turning pink from the reddening of the skin beneath. He had spent a lifetime in resenting indignities before be-fore they reached him. "Building inspectors change," insinuated insin-uated Allison. "Politics is very uncertain." uncer-tain." Four indignant vestrymen Jerked forward to answer that insult. "Gentlemen, this is a vestry meeting," meet-ing," sternly reproved the Rev. Smith Boyd, advancing a step, and seeming to feel the need of a gavel. His rich, deep barytone explained why h.T was rector of the richest church la the world. Gail's eyes were dancing, but otherwise other-wise she was demureness itself as she studied, in turns, the members of the richest vestry in the world. She esti- mated that eight of the gentlemen I, then present were almost close enough to the anger line to swear. They numbered num-bered just eight, and they were most interesting! And this was a vestry meeting! "The topic of debate was money, I believe," suggested Rufus ' Manning, rescuing his sense of humor from somewhere in his beard. He was the infidel member. "Suppose we return to it. Is Allison's offer worth considering?" consid-ering?" "Why?" inquired the nasal voice of clean-shaven old Joseph G. Cook, who was sarcastic in money matters. The Standard Cereal company had attained its colossal dimensions through rebates; re-bates; and he had invented the device! de-vice! "The only reason we'd sell to Allison would be that we could get more money than by the normal return re-turn from our investment." "I've allowed two million for the profit of Market Square church in dealing with me," stated Allison, again proffering the envelope which no one made a move to take. "I will not pay a dollar more." W. T. Chisholm was suddenly reminded re-minded that the vestry had a moral obligation in the matter under discussion. discus-sion. He was president of the Majestic Majes-tic Trust company, and never forgot that fact. "To what use would you devote the property of Market Square church?" he gravely asked. "The erection of a terminal station for all the municipal transportation in New York," answered Allison; "subways, "sub-ways, elevateds, surface cars, traction lines! The proposition should have the hearty co-operation of every citizen." citi-zen." Simple little idea, wasn't it? Gail had to think successively to comprehend compre-hend what a stupendous enterprise this was; and the man talked about it as modestly as if he w ere planning to And This Was a Vestry Meeting. sod a lawn; more so! Why, back home, if a man dreamed a dream so vast as that, he just talked about it for the rest of his life; and they put a poet's wreath on his tombstone. "Now you're talking sentiment," retorted re-torted stubby-mustached . Jim Sargent. "You said, a while ago, that you came here strictly on business. So did we. This is no place for sentiment." Rufus Manning, with the tip of his silvery beard in his fingers, looked up Into the delicate groining of the apse, where it curved gracefully forward over the head of the famous Henri Dupre's crucifix, and he grinned. Qail Sargent was looking contemplatively from one to the other of the grave vestrymen. ves-trymen. "You're right." conceded Allison curtly. "Suppose you fellows talk it over by yourselves, and let me know your best offer." "Very well," assented Jim Sargent, with an indifference which did not seem to be assumed. "We have some other matters to discuss, and we may as well thrash this thing out right now. We'll let you know tomorrow." Gail looked at her watch and rose energetically. "I shall be late at Lucile's, Uncle Jim. I don't think I can wait for you." "I'll be very happy to take Miss Sargent anywhere she'd like to go," offered Allison, almost instantaneously. instantane-ously. "Much obliged, Allison," accepted Sargent heartily; "that is, if she'll go with you." "Thank you," said Gail simply, as she stepped out of the pew. The gentlemen of the vestry rose as one man. Old Nicholas Van Ploon even attempted to stand gracefully on one leg, while his vest bulged over the back of the pew in front of him. "I think we'll have to make you a permanent member of the vestry," smiled Manning, the patriarch, as he bowed his adieus. "We've been need ing a brightening influence for some time." Willis Cunningham, the thoughtful one, wedged' his Vandyke between the heads of Standard Cereal Clark and Banker Chisholm. "We hope to see you often, Miss Sargent," was his thoughtful remark. "I mean to attend services," returned re-turned Gail graciously, looking up into the organ loft, where the organist was making his third attempt at that baffling baf-fling run in the Bach prelude. "You haven't said how you like our famous old church," suggested the Rev. Smith Boyd with pleasant ease, though he felt relieved that she was going. The sudden snap in Gail's 'eyes fairly fair-ly scintillated. It was like the shattering shat-tering of fine glass in the sunlight. "It seems. to be a remarkably lucrative lucra-tive enterprise," she smiled up at him. and was rewarded by a snort from Manning. Allison frankly guffawed. The balance of the sedate vestry was struck dumb by the impertinence. Gail felt the eyes of the Rev.'Smith Boyd fixed steadily on her, and turned to meet them. They were cold. She had thought them blue; but now they were green! She stared back into I them for a moment, and a little red j spot came Into the delicate tint of her oval cheeks; then she turned deliber-! deliber-! ately to the marvelously beautiful big j transept window. It had been de-! de-! signed by the most famous stained-'. stained-'. glass artist in the world, and its subject sub-ject lent itself to a wealth of color, j It was Christ turning the money 1 changers out of the temple! CHAPTER II. "Why?" "Snow!" exclaimed Gail in delight, turning up her face to the delicate flakes. "And the sun shining. That means snow tomorrow!" Allison helped her into his big, piratical-looking runabout, and tucked her in as if she were some fragile hot- : house plant which might freeze with j the first cool draft. ' "The pretty white snow is no friend of mine," he assured her, as he took the wheel and headed toward the avenue. ave-nue. He looked calculatingly into the sky. "This particular downfall is likely to cost the Municipal Transportation Transpor-tation company several thousand dol- , lars." "I'm curious to know the commercial commer-cial value of a sunset in New York," Gail smiled up at him. Allison had the impression that under the cover of her exquisitely veined lids she was looking at him cornerwise, and having a great deal of fun all by herself. "We haven't capitalized sunsets yet, I but we have hopes," he laughed. "Then there's still a commercial opportunity," op-portunity," she lightly returned. "I feel quite friendly to money, but it's so intimate here. I've heard nothing else since I came, on Monday." "Even in church," he chuckled. "You delivered a reckless shock to Rev. Smith Boyd's vestry." "Well?" she demanded. "Didn't he ask my opinion?" t "I don't think he'll make the mistake mis-take again," and Allison took the corner cor-ner into the avenue at a speed which made Gail, unused to bare inches of leeway, class Allison as a demon driver. The tall traffic policeman around whose upraised arm they had circled smiled a frank tribute to her beauty, and she felt relieved. She had cherished some feeling that they should be arrested. "However, even a church must discuss dis-cuss money," went on Allison, as if he had just decided a problem to I which he had given weighty thought. "Fifty millions isn't mere money," retorted Gail; "it's criminal wealth. If no man can make a million dollars honestly, how can a church?" Allison swerved out into the center of the avenue and passed a red limousine limou-sine before he answered. He had noticed no-ticed that everybody in the street stared into his car, and it flattered ' him immensely to have so pretty a girl with him. "The wealth of Market Square church is natural and normal," he explained. "It arises partly from the increase in value of property which was donated when practically worthless. worth-less. Judicious investment is responsible respon-sible for the balance." "Oh, bother!" and Gail glanced at him impatiently. "Your natural impulse im-pulse is to defend wealth because it Is wealth; but you know that Market Square church never should have had a surplus to invest. The money should have been spent in charity. Why are they saving it?" Allison began to feel the same respect re-spect for Gail's mental processes which he would for a man's, though, when he looked at her with this thought in mind, she was so thoroughly thor-oughly feminine that she puzzled him more than ever. "Market Square church has an ambition am-bition worthy of its vestry," he informed in-formed her, bringing his runabout to rest, with a swift glide, just an accurate accu-rate three inches behind the taxi in front of them. "When it has fifty million mil-lion dollars, it proposes to start building build-ing the most magnificent cathedral on American soil." "Why?" she pondered. "Will a fifty million dollar cathedral save souls in proportion to the amount of money invested?" in-vested?" Allison enjoyed that query thoroughly. thor-oughly. "You must ask Rev. Smith Boyd." he chuckled. "You talk like a heathen!" hea-then!" "Oh, no," returned Gail gravely, and with a new tone. "I pray every morning morn-ing and every night, and God hears me." The note of reverence in her voice was a thing to which Allison gave instant respect. "I have no quarrel with religion. .Why, Mr. Allison, Alli-son, I love the church." Her eyes were glowing, the same eyes which had closed in satirical mischief. Now they were rapt. "What a stunning collie!" she suddenly exclaimed. Allison, who had followed her with admiring attention, his mind accompanying accom-panying hers in eager leaps, laughed in relief. After all, she was a girl and what a girl! The exhilaration of the drive, and of the snow beating in her face, and of the animated conversation, conver-sation, had set the clear skin of her face aglow with color. Her deep red lips, exquisitely curved and half parted, part-ed, displayed a row of dazzling white teeth, and the elbow which touched his was magnetic. Allison refused to believe that he was forty-five! "You're fond of collies," he guessed, surprised to find himself with an eager ea-ger interest in the likes and dislikes of a young girl. It was a new experience. experi-ence. . "I adore them!" she enthusiastically declared. "Back home, I have one of every marking but a pure white." There was something tender and wistful in the tone of that "back home." No doubt she had hosts of friends and admirers there, possibly a favored suitor. It was quite likely. A girl such as Gail Sargent could hardly escape it. If there was a favored fa-vored suitor Allison rather pitied him, for Gail was in the city of strong men. Busy with an entirely new and strange group of thoughts, Allison turned into the park, and Gail uttered an exclamation excla-mation of delight as the fresh, keen air whipped in her face. The snow was like a filmy white veil against the bare trees, and enough of it had clung, by now, to outline, with silver pointing, point-ing, the lacework of branches. On the -turf, still green from the open winter, win-ter, it lay in thin white patches, and squirrels, clad in their sleek winter garments, were already scampering to their beds, crossing the busy drive with the adroitness of accomplished metropolitan pedestrians, their bushy tails hopping behind them in ungainly loops. The pair in the runabout were silent, for the east drive at this hour was thronged with outward-bound machines, ma-chines, and the roadway was slippery with the new-fallen snow. Steady of nerve, keen of eye, firm of hand! Gai! watched the alert figure of Allison, tensely and yet easily motionless in the seat beside her. Perhaps feeling the steady gaze, Allison Al-lison turned to her suddenly, and for a moment the gray eyes and the brown ones looked questioningly into each other, then there leaped from the man to the woman a something which held her gaze a full second longer than she would have wished. . "Air's great," he said with a smile. "Glorious!" she agreed. "I don't want to go in." "Don't," he promptly advised her. "That's a simple enough solution," and her laugh, in the snow-laden air, reminded him, in one of those queer flashes of memory, of a little string of sleighbells he bad owned as a youngster. young-ster. "However, I promised Cousin Lucile." "We'll stop at the house long enough to tell her you're busy," suggested sug-gested Allison, as eager as a boy. "Let's!" cried Gail, and, with a laugh which he had discarded with his first business promotion, Allison threw out another notch of speed, and whirled from the Seventy-second 6treet entrance up the avenue to the proper turning, and half way down the block, where he made a swift but smooth stop, bringing the step with marvelous accuracy to within an inch of the curb. She flashed at him a smile and ran up the steps. She turned to him again as she waited for the bell to be answered, an-swered, and nodded to him with frank comradery. Two vivacious-looking women, one tall and black-haired and the other petite and blonde, and both fashionably slender and both pretty, rushed out into the hall and surrounded sur-rounded her. For an instant, Edward E. Allison had a glimpse of her, in her garnet and turquoise, flanked by a sprightly vision In blue and another sprightly vision in pink, and he thought he heard the suppressed sounds of tittering; titter-ing; then the door closed, and the lace curtains of the hall windows bulged outward, and Gail came tripping down the steps. They raced up and into the park, and around the winding driveways with the light-hearted exhilaration of children, and if there was in them at that moment any trace of . mature thought, they were neither one aware of it. They were glad that they were just living, and moving swiftly in the open air, glad that it was snowing, glad that the light was beginning to fade, that there were other vehicles in the park, that the world was such a bright and happy place; and they were qu!te pleased, too, to be together. to-gether. It was still light, though the electric lamps were beginning to flare up through the thin snow veil, when they Gail Watched the Alert Figure of Al- ' lison, Tensely Motionless Beside Her. rounded a rocky drive, and came in view of a little lookout house perched on a hill. "Oh!" called Gail, involuntarily putting put-ting her hand on his arm. "I' want to go up there!" The work of Edward E. Allison was well-nigh perfection. He stopped the runabout exactly at the center of the pathway, and was out and on Gail's side of the car with the agility of a youngster after a robin's egg. He helped her to alight, and would have helped her up the hill with great pleasure, but she was too nimble and too eager for that, and was in the lookout house several steps ahead of him. When she was quite finished with the view, and turned and went down the hill, one of her tiny French heels' slid, and she might have fallen, had it not been for the ironlike arm which he threw back to support her. For just an instant she was thrown fairly in his embrace, with his arm about her waist, and her weight upon his breast; and, in that instant, the fire which had been smoldering in him all afternoon burst into Came. With a mighty repression he resisted the impulse im-pulse to crush her to him, and handed her to the equilibrium which she instinctively in-stinctively sought, though the arm trembled which had been pressed about her. His heart sang, as he helped her into the machine, and sprang in beside her. He felt a savage sav-age joy in his strength as he started , the car and felt the wheel under his hard grip. He was young, younger than he had ever been in his boyhood; strong, stronger than he had ever been in his youth. What worlds he might conquer now with this new blood racing through his veins. It was as if he had been suddenly thrust into the fires of eternal lffe, and endowed en-dowed with all the vast, irresistible force of creation ! (TO BE CONTINUED.) |