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Show Maiden SS KATHLEEN f SrajKSk COPYRIGHT, KATHLEEN NORRI5 SrV.KI.U. S E. RVIC E CHAPTER XXIII Continued 20 "Yes, she always did. Well," Joe said, In an effort to be generous. gener-ous. "Larry was always fine to her, too. I think this thing, I mean last year was the first thing that ever really upset her. She didn't know what to do; she thought the best way was to pretend pre-tend that It didn't matter. I don't know; I think she acted according to her lights." "I think she did. Poor Ruth! But I can't get over It!" Tony took the folded cable and read and reread re-read It frowningly. "'Ruth struck by car In street yesterday,' " she read. " 'Died eleven this morning without regaining consciousness. Larry arrives from Paris tonight Gran as usual; we have not told her.' " It was signed "Caroline." Tony folded It; opened it and read It again. "Did this come to Carmel?" "About five. I motored right in. I didn't want you to see It In the paper tomorrow." Tony looked away, and Joe looked at her. The gracious lines of the long young body were set off by the green velvet gown; the deep lace collar and cuffs, the flushed cheeks and rumpled dark hair and serious blue eyes made her look like a beautiful beau-tiful child. "It makes me feel badly," she said, speaking as If her throat were sore. "I suppose so, Tony." "You're awfully kind about It, Joe," the girl said suddenly. She laid her hand on his, but her eyes were absent and her thoughts far away. Ruth!" she said In a strange whisper. "Dead I Oh, Joe, I'm sorry !" After a while he was gone, and in a dream she was mingling with the Christmas party again; presently present-ly it was time to go home, sticky, tired, Hushed, still laughing and talking. Brendn had carried her Ihi by off early; she had made her slaying at the Palace hotel tonight wilh Alvln's queer old father a lit- ue important. Aivin, we mustn't disappoint your father," she had said more than once. The others went together; Cliff and Mary Rose were staying with her family tonight, but Cliff took Tony and P.ruce and Aunt Meg and an old uncle home; every one agreed that there never had been a nicer Christmas party. Their "Merry "Mer-ry Christmas !" rang over and over iigaln in the cold night. "I have to go down to the office about one," Tony said. "I'll till my column with this pnrty." But when they had left the uncle at a modest address in Lnrkin street she told them all her news. "ClilT, Aunt Meg Doctor Vander-wall Vander-wall just came up to tell me that Ruth Bellamy was killed in Nice yesterday." "What I" Aunt Meg whispered sharply. "It's true." "My gosh, what a break !" Cliff said slowly, simply. Tony laughed nervously, briefly. When they got to the apartment house he came upstairs up-stairs to talk about It, although it was nearly eleven o'clock and he was supposedly returning at once to Mary Rose. They sat about In the Taft sitting sit-ting room, that same shabby room to which Tony bad returned despairing despair-ing nfter her first Interview with Larry Bellamy, more than four years ago, and threshed the whole thing out, family fashion. "Give uie the low-down, Tony; what do you think will happen? Will he come straight home?" "How could 1 possibly tell. Cliff? I'm so dazed by the whole thing It doesn't seem true, yet. Ruth killed. Ruth killed. I keep saying it over and over." "Hrenda know?" "No. I didn't dare tell. I thought it might upset the party. I told Al- viii, and told him to tell her In the morning." "(Josh, what a break !" CHIT said again. "Sad, sad, sad!" Aunt Meg said, her chin In her hand. "Yes, It Is sad," Tony agreed soberly. "She was always kind to me." "Shall you cable, Tony?" This was ClilT. "No, I think not." Tony fell silent, si-lent, thinking. But to ClilT, when she was saying good-night at the door, and to Brendn Bren-dn the next day she added : "I'm not going to write him. I'm not even going to think about It. When be comes back as of course he will tben'll he time enough. 1 shouldn't care if it was a year from now. Any time :" "Oh, Tony," said Uremia, "It's terribly sad. But It means your happiness coming along. Nothing can stop it now !" Tony was standing at the window of Brenda's apartment at the Palace. Pal-ace. Anthony was wallowing rapturously rap-turously on the bed with his bottle; in a few minutes the Atwaters would be on their way back to Monterey in the doctor's shabby little car. Tony had come down in the morning to discuss the great change with Brenda. "I suppose not," she said slowly, looking down Into busy Market street. "But I won't think of it. I'm going to keep busy and not think. I'm working hard. Time only time can tell what's going to happen." "Tony, have you thought that It was lucky no, that's not the word have you thought that It was strange that Larry was In Paris?" "Yes, I did think of that," Tony laughed ruefully, without turning from her scrutiny of the street. "Have you heard from him at all, Tony?" "Oh, yes. At first he wrote. Ten letters twelve. I destroyed them. One or two, at first, I read. But the rest I didn't." "I think that was heroic." "It was," Tony agreed, with a dry little laugh. "And do you feel the same as you did?" the elder sister asked a little timidly. "Oh, yes." "And will you be terribly happy? of course you will be, when he gets here." "Ah, my dear, If you knew," Tony-said, Tony-said, under her breath. "If what?" Brenda said, pausing paus-ing in the always fascinating business busi-ness of putting on Anthony's hat and coat "I'm married I I know it all ! If what?" "If nothing!" Tony said over her shoulder, laughing. "You finished your bottle, and you were a good, good boy," Brenda said In an undertone to the baby. "Don't pull on Mother's hair; no, no, baby." Tony helped them both get away, went down to the office in a dream. "Oh, Tony," Said Brenda, "It's Terribly Ter-ribly Sad." Anything might happen now; any moment might be her moment. She had only to go her way quietly and to wait. The city room was languid on Christmas day. Downtown streets were deserted, streams of churchgoers church-goers gathered wherever there was a church door, coining out after the noonday services. She had gone herself with Aunt Meg to church this morning; she had prayed, hardly knowing what she hoped or feared. It was too soon to think of hopes or fears. Pictures of the scenes that were taking place in the far-away French seaside town drifted through her mind. Ruth lying still, her eyes closed, her waxen square little hands closed Tony could see them In her mind, as she had so often seen them! resting with locked lingers over her quiet heart. White satin and lace, and the scent of (lowers violets and lilies of the valley. She Imagined Larry, tall and grown and frowning and worried, seeing to all the details, talkins things over with Caroline. And all the time the old mother would he placid and comfortable in her sunshiny room upstairs, looking wonderingly at the faces of her nurses; smiling eagerly when they Drought her her lunch tray aud began be-gan to feed her. Mrs. Patterson had had a slight stroke. Tony wrinkled her brows trying to remember how long ago. They had gone to China, and after leisurely visits to Hongkong. Kobe, Pekin, had gone on through the Suez canal to Marseilles. That had been late summer time. It was more than a year ago. Then lu October, Oc-tober, Idling at Nice, Larry had been seriously ill, and afterward Mrs. Patterson had been stricken down. Immediately Ruth, always the de voted daughter, had rented a villa, had established the whole family comfortably within. Her mother had been allotted two great sunshiny sun-shiny rooms with a water view; two good nurses had been found somehow, an American girl and a German woman, and presently they had all settled down to the new environment and the new way of life. Larry was writing letters for some syndicate; was writing a book. He had been badly pulled down by his Illness; it had been some low troublesome form of typhoid, ty-phoid, and it had left him weak and lazy. Caroline wrote Joe amusing amus-ing accounts of his willingness to be managed, to be Idle. Tony had never seen Nice; she visualized it as best she could. A scimitar-sweep of Mediterranean shore; big hotels close to the water; wa-ter; villas set up on the steep bare hills. Ruth's villa was the "Casa Santa Teresa" ; it had once belonged be-longed to the duke of something. Abruzzi di Borgia? one of those familiar Italian names. Now they would give up the villa or could they, with Ruth's old mother installed there, perhaps not well enough to move? Tony would have a letter some day ; any day, there was no hurry, and then she would know all about everything. Meanwhile, there was the office. There were dull days and exciting excit-ing days; there was always much gossip and rumor to consider, and the Fitch-Muzzy affair to watch. Mae Ethyl was wearing white furs now, and had moved from the family fam-ily domicile in Ingleside Terrace to a small apartment downtown. "It seemed better for me to be nearer my work," said Mae Ethyl. Flo Danielson was gone, and the 01-sens, 01-sens, of the big eastern newspaper chain, had an Interest in the paper pa-per ; Tony knew Larry was holding hold-ing but a passive position among the stockholders; now and then they wired him for an option, that was all. For the rest, there was the home apartment, comfortable enough with its books and lamps, with Asterbel doing almost all the work nowadays, nowa-days, and there were Bruce's interests in-terests to follow; Bruce was a sophomore soph-omore at the state university and came home only for week-ends. There were Aunt Meg, affectionate and amusing and loyal, and occasional occa-sional encounters with magnificent Aunt Sally, and happy visits with Brenda. Brenda's second boy, George Alvin Atwater, junior, was only a few weeks older than Cliff's baby daughter; Cliff and Mary Rose came down to Pacific Grove for Cliff's vacation, and the sisters and brother and the small cousins had happy hours together. Alvin had been put on the hospital staff and was building up a good practice; prac-tice; Brenda was assisted at home by a dark-faced, heavy little Mexican Mex-ican maid named Rita, who chopped up and stewed everything upon which she could lay her hands, whether It were the carefully prepared pre-pared salad or the strawberries Tony brought down for a special treat Fortune had smiled at last on the Tafts. CHAPTER XXIV TONY'S happiest times In this , strange Interval were spent with Joe, In his Isolated farm house on the cliffs. From this base he made many of bis investigations among the pools and rocks of the shore, but he had had time to beatify the place too, and most of the changes were made at Tony's suggestion. Together thev had designed the great fireplace at the end of the sitting room, and together had shared the first successful fire therein. there-in. A gracious wide terrace, flagged in terracotta red, had been opened at the south side of the house; the sitting room and dining room lost something of their boxlike stiffness through the line of French floor windows, and the gay striped awning awn-ing over the terrace sent a mellow light thrdugh them both, Tony knew the little domain thoroughly now. She knew where the salt box stood In the kitchen, and how quickest to set the table with the blue cups and dragon plates that had come from San Francisco's Chinatown. She and Joe had many busy hours together. After Ruth's death It was the only place she wanted to go. She knew what he felt for her, but he never made her uncomfortably conscious of it They were merely the best of companions these days. Joe always had another house guest or two; a fellow scientist, spectacled spec-tacled and garrulrus; a musical couple who kept the old piano going; go-ing; a pair of wandering boys who were working their way around the world during the holidays. To entertain all of these Tony was at her happiest and brightest. She and Joe planned meals, fussed together in the kitchen, compounded pot roasts and salads. Her beauty was in its glory; she was twenty-seven, twenty-seven, now; a newspaper woman of some years' standing; confident and superb in her role of friend and companion to an Interesting man. In her heart she felt that the last touch of romance was added to the situation after Ruth's death. Somewhere in the world was the brilliant man this brilliant and lovely love-ly woman loved. He was coming for her; she would presently have her marvelous hour. Under the surface of the spring Sundays when she and Joe and sometimes Brenda and Alvin and the boys, and sometimes some-times Cliff and Mary Rose were moving through the familiar hours.' the thrilling consciousness that Larry was somewhere in the world, alive, thinking of her, flowed like a shining current, sounded like a vibrant vi-brant organ tone. It had become almost routine for her to go to Brenda on Saturday. Sometimes Aunt Meg went too, for Brenda was In more spacious quarters. quar-ters. Sometimes Aunt Meg stayed with Bruce or went to Aunt Sally; often one of the newspaper men was going down that way, and Tony had a lift She would arrive in her city clothes at about four, get Into comfortable com-fortable cottons, sit with Brenda in the sunny back yard, with Anthony tottering about on the new grass, and Georgie asleep in his shabby coach beside them. At noon Sundays Joe's car always al-ways twinkled up; sometimes they were all Invited to lunch ; usually he and Tony went off contentedly together. "The marriedest people that ever weren't married !" Brenda commented, in irritation. "What she's thinking of, not to take Joe!" Before Ruth's death, when she had put this question directly to Tony, Tony had answered, "I don't know, Bendy. I'm crazy, I guess. Joe's ten thousand times too good for me or any woman. He hasn't a fault, that I can see. He's always good-natured, always intelligent, always al-ways cheerful and hospitable and affectionate and interested." After Ruth's death she no longer said this or said much at all. There was a far-away light in her eyes; she went into moments of dreaming, dream-ing, giving no explanation for her abstraction, perhaps unconscious of it. Joe was only one detail in the vague, thrilling background of the thoughts that glowed and shone like hidden treasure in her soul. How would Larry return to her? Where would she first see him, the tall figure with the little stoop to the squared shoulders, the brown face with its high-bridged nose and glasses over keen gray eyes Would he telephone very casually: "Tony? This is Larry. I got in this morning. morn-ing. Will you come to lunch with me at Jules'?" Or would he be standing by her desk in the city office some afternoon? after-noon? "Come and have dinner with me, Tony. I've got to see Arnoldson now; I'll be upstairs until six. I'll get you then." And then after that, what? But Tony's breath would fail her as she thought of the details; the happy crowding details that included wed-, ding' plans and home-finding, that included new frocks and the ordering order-ing of the new cards of Mrs. Lawrence Law-rence Hillyard Bellamy, that included in-cluded trips in Larry's car the historic his-toric car of their two roadside accidents acci-dents trips to the beach for lunch, and down to Monterey to see Bendy, and over to Carmel to cook dinner for Joe. He wouldn't make much fuss about It all ; Larry never did. There would be no open exultation, no compliments or protestations. But she would have a sense of his complete com-plete possession, his quiet domination domina-tion of her and everything that touched her. Just the way Larry watched one just the half smile in his quizzical eyes was enough to give any woman a feeling of being completely, adequately adored. "Have you heard anything from Larry?" Joe asked one Sunday, when he and she happened to be alone, and even the young birches and poplars, and lashing agaiust a lashing sea. Everything out of doors was splashing and dripping, and smoking with blown mist. Joe had called for Tony at eleven, and torn her away from a happy bathing bath-ing scene in Brenda's nursery. He had explained that friends were, coming down from town, and that he must have a special lunch. These were important persons; Professor Unger was as Tony explained ex-plained it to Brenda "the most distinguished something of something some-thing at Johns Hopkins," and Tony must come over to make the salad and amuse the company on this rainy day. (TO DE COXTIM'ED) |