Show ell 4 7 4 I 1 SYNOPSIS george percival val algernon jones vice president of 0 the metropolitan oriental rug company of new york thirsting tor for romance Is in cairo on a abbin b aaness oss trip horace bryanne arrives at the hotel in cairo with a carefully guarded bundle lyanne sella sells jones the famous holy ahl ades rug which he admits having stolen from a pasha at bagdad jones meets major callahan and later Is introduced to fortune Ched soye by a woman to whom lie be had loaned 1 pounds at monte carlo months previously and who turns out to be I 1 a mother CHAPTER V continued rella said mrs Ched soye a quiz smile slanting her lips you wish my opinion 7 countered the daughter he Is shy hut but he Is ri neither elther stupid nor billy silly and when he smiled be he is really good looking my child replied the woman drawing off her gloves and examining her shapely hands I 1 have looked in to the very heart of that young man A thousand years ago a red cross on his he would have been beat ing his fists lists against the walls of 0 jerusalem five hundred years later he lie would have been singing chant under lattice windows a pa ladin and a poet how do you know that did he make love to you youa no but I 1 made love to him with out his knowing it and that was more to my purpose than having him make love to me enigmatically three days and he was so guileless that he never asked my name but in monte carlo as you know one asks only bour banker s name and your purpose it Is still mine dear do you real ize that we haven t seen each other months and that you haven t offered to kiss me did he go away without writing to you about that moneys money mrs Ched soye calmly plucked out the fingers of her gloves I 1 f believe I 1 did receive a note inclosing his its bankers banker s address but bately in the contusion confusion of returning I 1 to paris I 1 lost it my memory has always been a trial to me sadly since Sin cehen when coldly there Is not a woman living with a keener memory than yours you flatter me in affairs that in terest me perhaps you never meant to pay him it Is horrible my dear fortune how you jump at conclusions 1 did I 1 not offer him a draft the very first thing knowing that at such a moment he could not possibly accept ita derisively ri sometimes I 1 hate you youl in these days filial devotion Is a lost art no no it Is a flower parents have ceased to cultivate and there was in the tone a otral trained ned note which described an in tense longing to be loved for if george percival val algernon jones was a lonely young man it was the result of his own blindness whereas fortune Ched soye turned hither and thither in search of that which she bhe never could find the wide labian desert held upon its face a loneliness a desolation less mournful than that which reigned within her heart hush we are growing sentiment al warned the mother besides I 1 believe we are attracting attention her glance swept a halfe half circle ircle corn coin pardon me met I 1 should be sorry to draw attention to you ou knowing how sou ou abhor it my child learn from me temper Is 1 the arch enemy of smooth complex ions jones it makes you laugh it is a homely honest name I 1 grant that but a percival val alger aller con non jones mrs Ched soye laughed costly it was one of those pleasant sounds that caused persons within hearing to wait for it to occur again come let us go up to the room it Is a dull dusty journey in from port said alone fortune was certain that for her mother her heart knew nothing but hate neglect indifference in justice misunderstanding the chill that always met the least outreacH ng of the child childs s affections the unaccountable disappearances the terror of the unknown the blank wall of ignorance behind which she af was always kept upon these hate had her dark and brooding re treat yet never did the mother come within the radius of her sight that she did not fall under the spell of strange fascination enchaining fight against it how she might A kindly touch of the hand a single mother smile and she aou d have flung her I 1 t arms about the other woman neck but the touch and the mother smile never came she knew she under stood she gasn wasn t wanted she t been wanted in the beginning to her mother she was as the young of ani ant mals male interesting only up to that time when they could stand alone that the mother never made and held j feminine friendships was in nowise astonishing beauty and charm such ae as she possessed served immediately to stimulate envy in other womb women s hearts and that men of all stations station in life flocked about her why it Is the eternal tribute demanded of beau ty here and there the men were not all the daughter might have wished often they burnt sweet flattery at her shrine tentatively but as she coolly stamped out these incipient fires they at length came to regard her as one regards the beauty of a frosted window as a thing to admire and praise in passing one ache always abided the bitter knowledge that had she met in hind kind smile for smile and jest tor for jest she might have been her mothers mother a boon companion but deep back in some hidden chamber I 1 of her heart lay a secret dread of such guch a step a dread which whenever she strove to analyze it ran from under her investigating touch as little balls of quicksilver run from under the pressure of a thumb she was never without the comforts of life well fed well dressed well housed and often her mother flung her some jeweled trinket which again that sense of menace she put away but never wore the bright periods were when they left her in the little villa near mentone with no one but ber her old and faithful nurse there with her horse her books and her flowers she was at peace eek into week and month into month she was let be never a letter came save from some former schoolmate who was coming over and wanted letters of introduction to dukes and duchess es it she smiled over these there letters it was with melancholy tor for the dukes and duchesses who fell within her singular orbit were not the sort to whom one gave letters of introduction where her mother went she never had the least idea she might be in any of the great ports of the world anywhere beten between new york and port said the major generally dis appeared at the same time then perhaps she shed d come back from a pleasant tram ride over to nice and find them both at the villa maid and luggage mayhap a night or two and off they d go again never a word about their former journey buncom rather quiet these absences together with mith the unyemon strat stra lve tive reappearances used to hurt fortune dreadfully it gave her a clear proof of where she stood exactly nowhere the hurt had lessened with the years and now she didn dian t care much like as as not they would drag her out of eden for a month or two for what true reason she never could quite fathom unless it was that at times her mothe mother liked to have the daughter near her as a toll foil at rare intervals she saw steel eyed grim mouthed men wandering up and down before the gates of the villa 0 a H ROLD ja of AND 5 ca C 9 ji OA ON THE BOX et t 4 alion ly t 1911 aby y I 1 there was one man more persistent than the others her mother called him horace which the major mel met lowed into hoddy he was tau tall blond good looking a devil may care edu bated witty amusing and in evening dress he appeared to be whit it was quite evident he had once been a gentleman at first she thought it strange that he should make malre her in stead of her mother his confidante As to what vocation be he pursued she did not know for or he kept sedulous guard over his tongue but his past up to that fork in the road where man mun hood says good by to youth was hers and in this direction clever and artful as the mother was she sought in vain to wrest this past from her daughter daughters s lips to the mother it was really nee essary for her to know who this man really was had been knowing thor hughly as she did what he was now persistent he undeniably was but never coarse nor rude since that time he had come back from the casino at monte carlo much the worse for wine she feared him yet in spite of this tear fear she had tor for him a vague liking a hazy admiration whatever his faults be she stood witness to his great physical strength and courage he ite was the only man among all those who appeared at the villa fanny and immediately vanished who returned again and he too soon grew to be a part of this unreal drama i arriving mysteriously one day and de parting the next that a drama was being enacted un der her eyes she no longer doubted but it was as as though she had taken her seat among the audience in the middle of the second act she could make neither head nor tall to it whenever she accompanied her mother upon these impromptu jour her character or rather her at underwent a change swept aside her dreams she accepted the world as it was saw things they were laughed but without merri ment jested but with the point it was the reverse of her real character to give hurt to any living thing but during these forced march eg es as the major humorously termed them and such they were in truth she could no more stand against div ing the cruel stab than when alone in her garden he could resist the tender pleasure of succoring a fallen butterfly she was especially happy in finding weak spots in her mother s ax V r L there two other women in all cairo to compare with thes two wo fanny but they never rang the bell nor spoke to her when she passed them on the street it if she talked ot of ald these hese men her mother and the major exchange amused glances noth ing more if rightly or v hongly she hated her mother she despised her uncle who was ever bringing to the villa men of money but ot of coarse fiber ostensibly with the view of marrying her off but fortune had her dreams and she was quite content to wait armor and she never denied herself the thrust mrs Ched soye enjoyed these sharp encounters tor for it must be added that she gave as good as she took and more often than not her thrusts bit deeper and did not always heal fr fotune artune never asked questions rela tive to the family finances if she harbored any doubts as to their origin to the source of their comparative lux ury she never put these into speech she had never seen her father fattier but she had bad often heard him referred to as that brute or th that at tool fool or that drunken imbecile if a portrait of him existed fortune had not yet seen it she visited his lonely grave once a year in the protestant cemetery and dreamily tried to conjure up what manner ot of man he had been one day she piled plied her old italian nurse with questions handsome yes but it was all so long ago cars mia that I 1 can not describe him to you did he drink behind this ques tion there was no sense of moral obloquy as applying to the dead sainted mary I 1 didn dian t all men drink their very souls into purgatory those dayse had he any relatives 7 I 1 never heard of any was he rich no but when the signora your mother marri darrld d him she thought he was it was not till later years that for tune grasped the true significance of this statement it illumined many pages she dropped all investigations concluding wisely that her mother if she were minded to speak at all could supply only the incidents the details it was warm balmy like may in the northern latitudes women wore white hite dresses and carried sunshades over their shoulders A good band played faira from the new light operas and at one side of the grand stand kand were tea tables under dazzling linen fashion waa was out not all her votaries enjoyed polo but it was absolutely necessary to pretend that they dd when they talked they discussed the spanish lancer dancer who paraded back and forth across the tea lawn they discussed her jewels her clothes her escort and quite frankly her morals which ot of the tour was by all odds the most popular theme all agreed that she was handsome in a bold way this modification invariably distinguishes the right sort of women from the wrong art from which there Is no ap peal to a higher court they could ft ell afford to admit of her beauty ance since the dancer was outside what Is called the so social ial pale for all that her newest escort was a prince incognito thy also discussed the play at bridge the dullness of this particular season seaon the possibility of war between eng land and germany and some one asked others who were the two well gowned women down in front sitting on either side of the young chap 11 in 1 pearl pearI grey no one knew mother and daughter probably anyhow they knew som hing about good clothes george was happy he was as proud too he saw the glances the nods of approval he basked in a bind kind of sunshine that was new what an ass he had been all his life to have been afraid of women just because he was percival val algernon what he should have done was to have gone forth boldly taken what pleasures he found and laughed with the rest of them there t two other women in all cairo t to 0 compare with these two the mother shapely elegant with ire the dark beauty ot of a high hig class helass span lard possessing humor trenchant corn vom ment keen deduction and application worldly cynical highbred high bred the stu dent of nations might have tried in vain to pla place ce her she spoke the french of the parisians the italian of the florentines the german of the Hanover lans and her english was the envy of americans and the wonder of the londoners the daughter fell behind her but little but she was more reserved As fortune sat beside the young col lector that afternoon she marveled why they had given him percival val al at gernon jones was all right solid and substantial but the other two turned it into ridicule still what was the matter with percival Perc lva algernon ills tory bad had given men of these names mighty fine things to accomplish then why ridicule was it due to the perverted angle of vision created by wits and humorists in the comic week lies who were eternally pillorying these unhappy prefixes to ordinary cognomens omens and why this pillorying 9 she t studied the subject suf euf to realize teat that the business of the humorist Is hot not so much to amuse as to warn persons against becoming ridiculous and percival val al at gernon jones was all of that it re solved itself into a matter of values then had his surname been mont morency percival val algernon would have fitted as a key to its lock she smiled no one but a fond mother would be guilty of such a crime and if she ever grew to know him well enough she was going to ask him all about this mother what interest bad had her own mother in this harmless young man oh some day she would burst through this web this jungle some day she would see beyond the second act what then she never troubled to ask her self time enough when the moment arrived I 1 had an interesting adventure last night a most interesting one NU C 0 I 1 expect every hour to heap hear if of some one arriving from bagdad began george who was no longer the shy blundering recluse they were on the way back to town tell it me said mrs Ched soye he leaned over from his seat beside the chauffeur of the hired automobile hang the expense on a day like this A fellow brought me a rug last night one of the rarest outside the museums how and where he got it I 1 in not fully able to state cut but he had been in a violent struggle somewhere arms slashed shins bat tred he admitted that he had gone in where many shapes of death lurked it was a bit irregular I 1 bought the rug however some one else would have snatched it up if I 1 hadn haan t I 1 wanted him to recount the adventure but he smiled and refused I 1 ell you what it Is these eastern ports are great places how interesting mrs Ched soye 8 color was not up to the mark he ile w was as not seriously wounded 7 |