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Show THE BR ANDING IRON I ' By Katharine Newlin Burt Copyright by Katharine N. Burt which seemed to her to have filled this strunge, pay house for an eternity. For the first time full awareness of the present cut a rift In the trouble! cloudiness of her Introspection. At once Prosper's hand laid down Its pencil and he turned about In his chulr and gave her a gleaming look and smile. Joan was fairly startled. It was as If she had touched some mysterious spring and turned on a dazzling, daz-zling, unexpected light. As a matter of fact, Prosper's heart had leapt at her wistful and beseeching voice. lie had been biding his time. He had absorbed himself In writing, content con-tent to leave in suspense the training of his enchanted leopardess. Half-absent Half-absent glimpses of her desolate beauty as she moved about his winter-bound house, contemplation of her unself-consclousness unself-consclousness as she companioned his meals, the pleasure he felt In her rapt listening to his music In the still, frost-held frost-held evenings by the fire these he had made enough. They quieted his restlessness, soothed the ache of his heart, filled huu with a warm and patient pa-tient desire, different from any feeling feel-ing he had yet experienced. He was amused by her Jack of Interest In him. She evidently accepted him as a superior su-perior being, a Providence; he was not a man at all, not of the same clay as Pierre and herself. Prosper hnd waited wait-ed understanding enough for her first move. When the personal question ques-tion came, it made a sort of crash In the expectant silence of his heart. Before answering, except by that smile, he lit himself a cigarette; then, strolling to the fire, he sat on the rug below her, drawing his knees up into his hands. Td like to tell you about my writing, writ-ing, Joan. After all, It's the great Interest In-terest of my life, and I've been fairly seething with It ; only I didn't want to bother you, worry your poor, distracted head. There's more In life than you've dreamed of experiencing. There's music, mu-sic, for one thing, and there are books and beauty of a thousand kinds, and big, wonderful thoughts, and there's w stockings stuffed into the shoes. Joan eagerly arrayed herself. She bad trouble with the vest, It was so filmy, so vaguely made It seemed to her, and to wear It at all she had to divest herself altogether of the upper part of her coarse underwear. Then It seemed to her startllngly Inadequate, even as an undergarment. However, the robe did go over It, and she drew that close and belted It in. It was provided with long sleeves and fell to her ankles. She thrilled at the delightful de-lightful clinging softness of silk Blockings Block-ings and for the first time admired her long, round ankles and shapely feet. The Chinese slippers amused her, but they were beautiful, all embroidered em-broidered with flowers and dragons. She felt she must look very queer, indeed, and went to the mirror. What she saw there surprised her because it was so strange, so different. Pierre had not dealt in compliments, nis woman was his woman and he loved her body. To praise this body, sur-rendered sur-rendered In love to him, would have been Impossible to the reverence and reserve of his passion. Now Jonn brushed and colled her hair. Then, starting toward the door at Wen Ho's announcement of "Dinner, "Din-ner, lady," she was quite suddenly overwhelmed by shyness. From head to foot for the first time In all her life she was acutely conscious of herself. her-self. On that evening Prosper began to talk. It was Joan's amazing beauty as she stumbled wretchedly Into the circle of his firelight, her neck drawn up to Its full length, her head crowned high with soft, black masses, her lids dropped under the weight of shyness, vivid fright In her distended pupils, scarlet In her cheeks Joan's beauty , of long, strong lines draped to advantage advan-tage for the first time In soft and clinging fabrics that touched the spring of Prosper's delighted egotism. He told anecdotes, strange adventures; adven-tures; he drew his own Inverted morals; mor-als; he sketched his fantastic opinions; opin-ions; he was In truth fascinating, a speaking face, a lithe, brilliant presence, pres-ence, a voice of edged persuasion. She drew herself up straight in the big red-lacquered chair, sipped her coffee In dainty Imitation of him, gave zzzzzz 1 6YNOPSI9 John Landia, eighteen years old. wife of Pierre. Is the daughter daugh-ter or John Carver, who murdered her mother for aduJtery. Her lonely life, with her father, in a Wyoming cabin, unbearable. Joan leaves hlra to work In a hotel tn a nearby town. Joan meeta Pierre, and the two, mutually attracted, at-tracted, are married. Carver tells Pierre story of Joan's mother. Pierre forges a cattle brand. Frank Holliwell. young minister, presents books to Joan. Pierre forbids her to read them. Maddened Mad-dened by Jealousy, Pierre ties Joan and burns the Two-Bar brand Into her shoulder. Hearing Hear-ing her screams, a stranger bursts Into the house and shoots Pierre. The stranger revives Joan, telling her Pierre la dead, urges her to go with him. At the stranger's home Joan's Injuries In-juries are attended to. CHAPTER XI Continued. j He stood up near her feet at the corner of the hearth, tucked the Instrument In-strument under his chin and played. It was the "AubHde Provencale," and be played It creditably, with fair skill and with some of the wizardry that his nervous vitality gave to everything every-thing he did. At the first note Joan started, her pupils enlarged, she lay still. At the end he saw that she was quivering and In tears. He knelt down beside her, drew the hands from her face. "Why, Joan, what's the matter! Don't you like music?" Joan drew a shaken breath. "It's as If It shook me In here, something trembles In my heart," she said. "I never heered music before, Jest whls-tlln'." whls-tlln'." And again she wept. Prosper stayed there on his knee beside be-side her, his chin In his hand. What an extraordinary being this was, what a magnificent wilderness. The thought of exploration, of discovery, of cultivation, culti-vation, filled him with excitement and delight Such opportunities are rarely rare-ly given to a man. Even that other most beautiful adventure yes, he could thick this already I might have been tame beside this one. He looked long at Joan, long Into the fire, and hlra the full, deep tribute of her gaze, asked for no explanations and let the astounding statements he made, the amazing pictures he drew, cut their way Indelibly Into her most sensitive and preserving memory. Afterward, at night, for the first time, she did not weep for Pierre, the old lost Pierre who had so changed into a torturer, but, wakeful, her brain was on fire, she pondered over and over the things she had Just heard, feeling after their meaning, laying aside for future enlightenment what was utterly Incomprehensible, arguing with herself as to the truth of half-comprehended half-comprehended speeches an Ignorant child wrestling with a modern philosophy, philos-ophy, tricked out In motley by a ready wit He gave her "pretty things," whole quantities of them, fine linen to be made tip into underwear, soft white and colored silks and crepes, which Joan, remembering the few lessons In dressmaking she had had from Mtiud Upper, and with some advice from Prosper, made up not too awkwardly, accepting the mystery of them as one of Prosper's magic-makings. And, In the meantime, her education went on. Prosper rend aloud to her, tutored her, scolded her so fiercely sometimes that Joan would mount scarlet cheeks and nnpn nnirrv eves One dnv she fnlrlv she lay still, with the brooding beauty beau-ty of that first-heard melody upon her face. It was the first music she had ever heard, "except whlstlln'," but there had been a great deal of "whlstlln'" about the cabin up Lone river; whistling whis-tling of robins In spring nothing sweeter the chordlike whistlings of thrush and vlreo after sunset, that bubbling "mar-guer-Ite" with which the blackbirds woo, and the light diminuendo di-minuendo with which the bluebird caressed ca-ressed the air after an April flight Perhaps Joan's musical faculty was less untrained than any other. After all, thot "Aubade Provencale" was Just the melodious story of the woods in spring. Every note linked Itself to an emotional, subconscious memory. It filled Joan's heart with the freshness of childhood and pained her only because be-cause It struck a spear of delight Into her pain. She wos eighteen, she had grown like a tree, drinking in sunshine and storm, but rooted to a solitude where very little else but sense-experience could reach her mind. She hod seen tragedies of animal life, lonely death-struggles, horrible flights and more horrible captures, she had seen Joyous woolngs, love-plnings, partings, and bereavements. She knew that the sun shone on the evil and on the good, but she knew also that frost fell upon the good as well as upon the evil, nor Bung her book from her and ran out of the room, stamping her feet and shedding tears. But back she came presently for more, thirsting for knowledge, knowl-edge, eager to meet her trainer on more equnl grounds, to be sble to answer an-swer him to some purpose, to contradict contra-dict him. to stagger ever so slightly the self-assurance of his superiority. And Prosper enjoyed the training of his captive leopardess, though he sometimes all but melted over the pathos of her and had much ado to keep his hands from her unconscious young beauty. was the evil to be readily distinguished. Her father prated of only one offense, her mother's sin. Joan knew that It was a man's right to kill his woman for "dealin's with another man." This law was human; It evidently did not hold good with animals. There was no bitterness, though some ferocity, In the traffic of their loves. While she pondered through the first ileepless nights in this strange shelter of hers, and while the billiard Prosper had counted on drove bayoneted battalions bat-talions of snow across the plains and forced them, screaming like madmen, along the narrow canyon, Joan came nlowly snd fully to a realization of the motive of Pierre's deed. He had been Jealous. He hsd thought that she was hsvlng dealings with another man. She grew hot and shamed. It was her father's sin, that branding on her shoulder, or. perhaps, going hack farther, her mother's sin. Carver had warned Pierre of the hot and smothered smoth-ered heart to bewsre of Joan's "look-In' "look-In' an' lookln' at another man." Now, In piteous woman fashion, Joan went over and over her memories of Pierre's love, altering them to fit her terrible experience. She was still hetd by all the strong mesh of her short married life. She had simply not got as far as Prosper Gael. She accepted his hospitality hospi-tality vaguely, himself even more vaguely. When she would be done with her passionate grief, her laborious labori-ous going-over of the past, her active snd tormenting anger with the lover whom Prosper had told her was dead, ,),. it would he time to study this And, in the Meantime, Her Education Went On. companionship and talk. What larks we could have, you and I, If you would care I mean, If you would wake up and let me show you how. You do want to learn a woman's work, don't you, Joan?" She shook her head slowly, smiling wistfully. "I'm so awful Ignorant you know so awful much. It scares me, plumb scares me, to think how much you know, more than Mr. Holliwell Holli-well I Such books an' books an' books! An' wrltln', too. You see I'd be no help nor company fer you. I'd like to listen to you.. I'd listen all day long, but I'd not be understand'." He laughed at her. Joan's pride was stung. "You've no right to laugh at me," she snld. . "I'd not be carin' what you think." And she left him, moving like an angry stag, head high, light-stepping. Before dinner be rapped at her door. "Joan, will you do me a favor?" A pause, then In her sweet vibrant voice she answered "Pd be doln' anything any-thing fer you, Mr. Gael." "Then put on these things for dinner din-ner Instead of your own clothes, will you V She opened the door ar.d he plied Into her arms a mass of shining silk, on top of It a pair of gorgeous Chinese Chi-nese slippers. "Do It to please me. even If you think It makes you look queer, will It was a January night when Joan, her rough head almost In the ashes, had rend "Isnhella and the Pot of niisll" by the light of flames. It was In March, a gray, still afternoon, when, looking through Prosper's bookcase, she came upon the tale again. , Trosper was outdoors cutting a tunnel, tun-nel, freshly blocked with snow, and Joan, having finished the "Life of Cellini," a writer she loathed, but whose gorgeous fabrications her master mas-ter hnd forced her to read, now hurried hur-ried to the bookshelves In search of something more to her taste. She had the gny air of a holiday-seeker, returned re-turned "Cellini" with a sniurt push, and. kneeling, ran her finger along the volumes, pausing on a binding of bright blue-and gold. It w as the color that hod pleased her and the fat, square sha, also the look of fair and well-spaced type. She took the hook snd squatted on the nig happy as s child with a new toy of his own choosing. (TO BK CONTINUKD.) other man. As for her future, she had no plans at all. Joan's life came to her as it comes to a child, unsullied by curiosity. At this time Prosper was Infinitely the more curious, the more excited of the two. I CHAPTER XII l A Matter of Tssta. ! "Vtist are yon writ In' so hnrd for, Mr On el?" 3onn vol..1 the question i wistful h"lnt of n brtsth. Bs drew it from a silence you, Joan?" "Of course," she smiled, looking up from the gleaming, sliding stuff Into his face. "I'd like to, anyway. Pressing Press-ing up that's fun." And she shut the door. She spread the silk out on the bed and found It s louse robe of dull blue, embroidered In silver dragons and lined with brilliant rose. There was a skirt of this same roe-robred stuff. In one weighted pm-ket she found a belt of silver coins and a little vet of creamy luce. There were rose silk |