| OCR Text |
Show I, i . , fe Have Oaasagecl All Tliat by Herbert Qaiclt and Elena Slepanoff Mac Malion Copyright by The Bobba-Merrill Co. WNTJ Servica THE STORY Commissar Vilinsky's Soviet equad Invades the home of Kras-sin. Kras-sin. ariritocrat at Kazan. Vll-lnsky Vll-lnsky insults the daughter, Mu-sla. Mu-sla. Commissar Loris is urged to confiscate the home. The family consists of Judge Kra,ssln, Mrs. Krassin, Ilya, former officer, and Musia. Vladimir, former officer, U Musfa's fiance. Mra. Krassin expresses fear for her son's safety. safe-ty. Ilya recognizes In Vilinsky a former dishonest steward. Mrs. Krassin conducts Vilinsky in an 1 inspection of the home and contrives con-trives that he shall not see Ilya, CHAPTER IV Continued "Oh, those are rooms we saw long ago," said she. "Here are the Inst on this side. Enter, please." "Yes," said Vilinsky to protect his self-respect, "1 remember now." He entered Muslu's room, as we have seen. He swept aside the hangings hang-ings whic'i masked the door to the Inner room. He refused to allow the young trirt to retire when her mother, horrilled by his familiarities, quested her to c'o so. He asked her to play for him to play anything he In his peasant's smock ! If Mrs. Krassin had harbored the Idea that he nilght forget Ilya Krassin in this room, her surmise was correct. .Mrs. Krassin understood his Indescribable Indescrib-able leer as he addressed her. and knew what he meant when he said that he wanted I his room and everything every-thing in it left just as It was when he came there to live; but she quite trusted to Musia's rearing to prevent her from timleTstnnding. In fact, that she could not understand was. as between be-tween Mrs. Krassin and Musia, what the law calls "an Indisputable presumption," pre-sumption," and Mrs. Krassin as the court, would have refused to admit any evidence to overturn It. Of course Musia could not understand! And the girl from force of habit carried car-ried out this false presumption of naivete. She stood there with her face blank of all comprehension, like that of a child, her slight rounded figure revealed by her informal altire. a very bewitching person to the eyes of the coarse and brutal Intruder. Little, graceful, very feminine, with hair of straw color, and brown almond-shaped almond-shaped eyes, she was a new type to Vilinsky and he' acted according to his lights In the premises. He suddenly sud-denly sat down beside Musia and pulled her down upon his lap. Vilinsky's attendants, who were waiting in the hr.ll cntside the room, were asti nlshed to see a pale slim girl in negligee run out of the room, start back at seeing their sinister group, and then speed away past them into another part of the house. They stgod amazed for a moment, followed her to the next turning, found that she had vanished, and then they ran back with thoughts of assassination or other resistance in their minds. They found their chief standing with a rather foolish fool-ish look on his face, over the form of an old woman who seemed to have fainted on a sofa in the luxurious room. "1 will show these nobles," said Vilinsky, "that thjir time has come! . . . . Well, old woman, come to life here !" . Mrs. Krassin slowly rose to a sitting posture, and looked upon him with an expression in which hate, Indignation Indigna-tion and pacification were curiously mingled. "I've seen all I want to see here this morning," said he. "When we want the house we'll send you an order. And leave this room just as It Is! Come. We have wasted too much time here now I Tovariscta Loris will be complaining because I am late!" They went out swaggering through the doors, to their cars, and away. Mrs. Krassin watched them as they went out of sight, and then made her way quickly to where her child was concealed. Which child? Not Musia. And Vilinsky had never even asked about Ilya ! CHAPTER V Defenseless! Musia's world came crashing about her In downfall, in that scene with Vilinsky. She had two contending feelings: she must be avenged for this insult. .Should she, a daughter of the boyars, have lai upon her, in her own room, the filthy, hands of this creature crea-ture Vilinsky, and upon her soul the stain of his commands and his innuendoes innuen-does and must this thing go unavenged? un-avenged? She grew hot with rage. And then her other feeling blanched her face and left her cold with fear the feeling that she. even she, was defenseless! de-fenseless! The very gods would have fought for her ancestors. The very moujiks could now exult over her, lay their hands on her. in her own house, in her mother's presence. And there was no one to wliom she could fly or appeal for vengeance or protection. She could not go to Ilya he must not be endangered on any account. Vladimir? Vlad-imir? Yes, he would fight for her but where was he? He had come into the Krassin house in the night like a mouse, and was awaiting the proper time to slip out and what could even as gallant a champion as Vladimir do against the risen sea of the people? I What could not the wretches do? She had heard awful tales, not yet contradicted, of the nationalization of women. Was she to he the first victim vic-tim of it In this doomed city of Kazan? It was almost Inconceivable, but she, Musia Krassin, was defenseless against it, unless the Bolshevikl had some rules for her protection: she was an easy victim to this bushy-browed lout in the peasants' smock. Her futher? He was the last person. per-son. In prosperity or adversity, of whom any of the family thought Yet, hiding away even from the servants' eyes in closets and attics, after stealing steal-ing back In the dusk to her own rooms, and on finding them vacant of visitors, changing her clothes to something some-thing more fitting, she stole, for the first time In weeks, to the rooms to which h?r father had for years been confined as nn Invalid. The dusk was Just shutting down Into the night Judge Krassin was sitting In a long flowered dressing gown which was wrapped carefully about his feet, reading read-ing a law book. "Who Is it?" he exclaimed fretfully. "Oh, It is you, my daughter? My nerves are very bad tonight, and you startled me. 1 am very glad to see you, of course, .Maroosia." "I .im sorry I startled you, father." She had come to her father, a frightened fright-ened child, to cling to his hand, with some Instinct that he might stand between be-tween her and a danger to which he was himself Immune; for neither father, fa-ther, h. other nor mother was under the shadow In which she moved. They could only he made to die. She stepped to her father tinddly and took his hand ; he allowed her to retain It for a moment, and then drew It away to turn i leaf of his book. There was no harbor here for this trembling soul. "1 do not agree with this decision," said hD. "When 1 was on the bench I should never have agreed to such law as this. My duty to uy sovereign would not have permitted it." She asked him If It would trouble or disturb him If she sat by him for a while. She felt hurt, though she had no reason to feel so, when he looked up at her In surprise, and said very politely that he would be very glad. He had not been, he went on to say, as If delivering an opinion in court, often favored by the company of his family; and It was a pleasure to note an agreeable exception to the rule. And servants were not wha: they used to be. His man, Simon Boschkov, seemed to take th liberty of having things outside the house to which he was attending, even now. Mr. Krassin Kras-sin did not ask much, but it seemed to him that, tied as he was to his chair, or at least confined to his room, lie had the right to look upon such neglect neg-lect as a hardship. "May I sit with you tonight?" asked Musia. "1 will be very quiet Perhaps Per-haps I can read to ycu." "It will be very kind of you," said the old judge; "but few people read the law with understanding." Musia settled down on a low chair at his feet and read. Sometimes he would correct her pronunciation, and once or twice he gave her a little lecture lec-ture on the law. He did not know that It was a wise old Aztec coming back ,o lecture on the laws of the Montezumas obsolete! After he had grown petulant because he wanted Simon Boschkov to put him to bed, Simon really came with multered excuses, ex-cuses, and Musia told him to sit outside out-side while she waited in his place beside be-side the door of her father's bedroom. She sat and listened listened for the Terror announced by a ring at the door; or by heavy trampling In the passages; or by stealthy footfalls In the hall ; or by the bursting In of the door of her father's suite by a man In a peasant's smo k. (TO BE CONTINUED.) |
