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Show tulips SYNOPSIS Victoria Herrondeon. an odd-looking, vivacious Utile ,Mti. had been too young to feel the shock that came when her father. Keith Herrendeen. lost his fortune. for-tune. A gentle, unobtrusive soul, he is now employed as an obscure chemist In San Francisco, at a meager salary. His wife. Mugda, cannot adjust herself to the change. She is a beautiful woman, fond of pleasure and a magnet for men's attention. Magda and Victoria have been down at a summer resort and Keith joins them for the week-end. Magda leaves for a bridge parly, excusing excus-ing herself for being such a "runaway." CHAPTER I Continued There was a little boat waiting at the pier just below the lodge; a white little boat gushing blots of white dancing light onto the dark water. "They're going out to that y3cht out there for dinner," Victoria told her father. '"Oh, yes," he said, looking In the direction of the lodge. "Dad, why don't you like going to the lodge?" 'Well, for one thing 1 can't afford af-ford it, Vic." "Can Mother?" "Ah, but they ask her. They don't let it cost her anything." "They give her dresses, too," Victoria Vic-toria said, thinking. ! "Who does?" "Mrs. Lester did that dark blue dress." "I thought she bought that at a sale?" "Xo; Mrs. Lester's maid, Lotty, brought it over in a box. And another an-other blue dress, too." They walked along in silence for a while. Presently Victoria said: "We've had a happy day, haven't we?" "I'm glad you have," her father said, stopping to bend down and kiss her. Victoria had to sleep on the porch cot that night, as she always did when Dad was there. In the night she wakened, and heard their voices her father's and her mother's. Her mother's was almost inaudible, and had a "please hush" note in it with which Victoria was entirely familiar. Her father's was not very loud, but clear: 'Tm not saying it's easy for you, Magda. I say it's simply your luck. We had it lots of it And God ki-ows I didn't hold out on you then. Now we haven't got it any more, and that's your bad luck. Silence. And then Mother's voice, very low and gentle: "Keith, I know how hard it is for you, dear. And if you feel that way I simply won't go. But it does seem a wonderful chance. We happen we four, the Harwoods and Grace Cuthbertson and I to play a marvelous mar-velous foursome of bridge, and Collins Col-lins that's the brother cuts in now and then, so it makes it perfect They're only to be gone five weeks. I could get Victoria's things straightened out and ask Hetty to get your dinners ..." There was another plause. Presently Pres-ently the man said: "You have no further affection no interest in either one of us, I know that" "Oh, please!" the woman's voice protested mildly. "I suppose this will go on into the forties and the fifties, boarding houses and Pine street apartments!" "It won't be forever," Keith Herrendeen Her-rendeen said. "It'll be until I'm too old to care!" Victoria heard her mother say. Then there was a long silence, while the little girl lay listening on the porch with her heart hammering hammer-ing like a wild bird's and her ears strained, and her whole little body tensed with fear. "Go, then," said her father out of the pause. They hadn't gone to sleep then; the quarrel was still on. "Oh, no; I won't go now," her mother said gently and sweetly, in a normal voice. "WelL now I tell you to go, that doesn't suit you!" "It would be impossible for me to go now," Mrs. Herrendeen murmured mur-mured firm!'-, ns if the whole matter mat-ter were settled. "jow, uo you want to act like that about it, Magda?" the man demanded, with a faint hint of uneasiness, of change, in his tone. Silence. Silence. Victoria heard her father's snore, light at first, swiftly deepening. Her heart began to beat more quietly. A night bird cried in the garden; the sea rushed and retreated on the rocks. A whimpering sob broke through the other sounds; Victoria froze. Her mother was crying; bitterly, brokenly crying, and keeping the noise of it soft, so that no one should hear. Victoria sufTered as if from physical physi-cal pain. The crying went on for v. losg time; a clock struck one for some half-hour; struck four. It was four o'clock! The world was gray in shadowless light when Victoria slipped noiselessly noise-lessly from bed and stepped to Die open window. She looked in. Her father was asleep, no doubt of that, for he was still healthily snoring. It was at the lightly covered form of her mother that she looked steadily; stead-ily; was she sleeping? No, the beautiful dark eyes were wide open, fixed on Victoria in the window. Mrs. Herrendeen beckoned, beck-oned, and Victoria flew to her arms, and they kissed each other, the child hugged down against the tumbled covers and the little lacy pillows. "You muggins, what waked you up?" the woman demanded In a breath that was less than a whisper. "Mother, are you all right?" "Perfectly all right sweetheart." "But, Mother, were you crying?" "I got too tired, and that's why I cried, and I'm a very silly mother." Victoria laughed the shadow of her own rich affectionate little laugh, and there were more kisses. Then she went back to her cold tumbled porch bed, and snuggled down inside it and was asleep before be-fore the morning's first chill blanket blan-ket of fog began to creep in across the level dim floor of the ocean. When they were at home in the city, Magda Herrendeen never got up for breakfast She always said that she loved getting up in the morning when there was anything to do. But in the five-room apartment apart-ment on Pine street there was not much to do. Keith got himself a cup of coffee and boiled two-minute oats for Victoria, Vic-toria, Yjr scrambled eggs for them both. The rest was just bread and butter, and milk poured from the bottle. Magda sometimes got up and got herself some orange juice, or even a cup of tea. She would come back with the mail, the newspaper carried car-ried with a smoking cup or the glass. Settling down again, she would yawn wearily; what horrible things were in the house for dinner, and what should be ordered? At eleven the telephone would ring, and then there would be a change. A change in her, and a change in the general atmosphere. "My dear, I don't think I can today," to-day," she would say. "But it sounds too divine! How late would we be? ... I see. Let me think . . . What are you wearing. Ethyl? . . . Yes, I have; I could wear the blue that Eleanor brought me from Paris . . . Yes, I know. But let me think about it and call you again!" Victoria knew how this went; she had heard it many times, for after all she had not been long in school, and there were .always long Saturday Satur-day mornings at home. Her mother would hang up the telephone only to seize it once more. She would be all vitality, all energy now. Her beautiful eyes would be dancing, her i manner absent-minded but sweet and happy again. "Vic, could you go down to Florence'sor Flor-ence'sor wait over, at school until six? Daddy'll be here early, you know; I'll leave a message for him to call for you . . ." And while she talked, Magda would be packing things in her handsome suitcase, laughing, glancing glanc-ing at the clock, snatching the telephone tele-phone again. Perhaps she would talk to a man this time. "Rudy, this is Magda. Ethyl and all cf them are going to Jane's tonight; to-night; are you? . . . Oh, wonderful! wonder-ful! When are you going down? For the polo? . . . Oh, fine! Could you take me along? . . . Well, you're a darling ... I know, but anyway you're a darling ... In about an hour? In about an hour." But after her eleventh birthday, after that visit to the beach house, there was a change between her parents, and Victoria saw it, or perhaps felt it rather than saw it. Her mother was gentler, sweeter, more affectionate than ever when she was with them, but she was with them much less. On the other hand Victoria's father fa-ther grew silent, and gray, and disagreeable, dis-agreeable, as the months went by and were years. He rarely spoke at all at home, and in the evenings he almost always went out CHAPTER II "Is Dad worried about business these days, Mother?" Victoria, fourteen four-teen years old, asked one day. "I don't think so especially, darling. dar-ling. I think he was a little cross because they wanted me to be in the theatricals." "And shall you be?" "I don't know. I'm trying to think it out. I hate," Mrs. Herrendeen Herren-deen said, smiling through the sudden sud-den tears that filled her beautiful 2ycs "I hate to trouble Daddy. But he does seem to me unreasonable. unreason-able. Men have their pleasures, and women have theirs. It Isn't my fault Unit the nicest ticlually the nicest persons in this part of tho world have been ao extraordinarily extraordi-narily generous to me." "Hut why don't they Invite him?" "Hut tlu'y do, my detirl Of course they dol Daddy could go everywhere every-where that I go, If he would, lint he doesn't enjoy It." Victoria pondered this awhile In silence. "When I'm nsked to a smart dinner, din-ner, or the opera, or to stay down in Hillsborough for some special par-ty, par-ty, am I to hang my head and say, 'Oh, thank you, but Mr. Herrendeen likes me to be at home nights'?" "I don't think he'd mind If it was only now and then," she suggested sug-gested uncertainly. "Ah, but that's the trouble, Vic. You can't play fast and loose. In three months they'd all have forgotten for-gotten me. Their lives go too fast. They go abroad, or to New York or Hawaii; there are always marriages mar-riages people coming and going changes " "Divorces," Victoria supplied simply, as her mother paused. Magda laughed, with a little touch of color in her face. "Well, yes, divorces. Everything Is whirling all the while visitors from the East, the polo teams, the golf people. You can't let go. To get out of it for two months to decline de-cline five invitations in a row, Vic would mean you were out forever." Again Victoria looked at her thoughtfully, puzzledly. "And would Dad like you to do that. Mother?" "Why, he's been so glum and silent si-lent these last months I hardly know. Ever since you and I went down to Santa Barbara last summer he's seemed to feel he has a grievance." griev-ance." Again the beautiful affectionate affection-ate eyes tilled with tears. Victoria's heart ached for her with a fierce wrench of pain and sympathy. She knew of what her mother was thinking on these hot days; she was thinking of her friends at Tahoe, and up on the Klamath river, and down on the cool shores of Pebble beach and Santa Barbara. Presently Magda came back to the question: "You do see that it's hard for me, Victoria? What would you do?" "Oh, yes; oh, yes," Victoria agreed. "It's it's hard on us all!" "Hard on you, too, dear?" Her mother asked quickly, in a tone that shrank away from pain. "Hard to see you unhappy and see him unhappy," Victoria said, her eyes watering. There was a ring at the door. Victoria was glad to go to answer it; the conversation had gotten completely com-pletely out of hand. She came in with a great box of flowers; there were often boxes of flowers, but not often as large as this. Victoria ran about getting vases for them. "And what's in the box. Mother, the little box?" Mrs. Herrendeen was smiling superbly, su-perbly, shaking her head. The card, twisted and wired in a wet envelope, mm "But Why Don't They Invite Him?" was in her hand; the little square jeweler's box with it. "What's in it Mother?" Victoria insisted. "I hate to look," the woman said. "I know it's going to make me angry." "Angry?" "I think so. Oh," Magda murmured, mur-mured, under her breath, "he has no right to do that!" "Do you know who it is before you even read the card, Mother?" "I think I do. I think it's my very rich friend, Mr. Manners," "The Spanish one?" "He is half Spanish, I believe." Magda slowly brought forth the card, glanced at it, crumpled it to pulp. Victoria's eager eyes were upon her as she opened the little box, cutting its heavy cords and breaking away the wax seals. There were a cardboard box, a light wooden box, a lined jewel case in which a heavy diamond bracelet was flashing and gleaming on a satin cushion. "What does the note say, Mother?" Moth-er?" "Just well, nothing, really Ridiculous!" Ri-diculous!" the woman murmured, her expression partly amused, partly part-ly cleased, partly impatient. "It's beautiful." Victoria said, of the bracelet. "Are they expensive?" expen-sive?" "Onlv a few thousand," ne. moth er answered carelessly. Slir ntled the bracelet carefully hack In its case; replaced the wooden box, the cardboard box. and yawned. "Don't you like him, Mniher?" "Who? I-'erd Manners'.'" "Is that his name? It doesn't sound very Spanish." "It's Ferdinand de Something Manners. I believe his mother was an Argentine heiress. He's lived there a great deal." "You might know he was Span-Ish," Span-Ish," Victoria said brightly, "or he wouldn't think he could send a mar rled lady Jewelry!" "True for you, Miss Herrendeen!" her mother agreed, going Into the bedroom with the box. Until she could return It, she would hide It, Victoria knew. Dad must know nothing of this. The afternoon dragged. After a while Victoria put on her old white serge skirt and a white thin sweater, sweat-er, pulled a small white hat over her bobbed head, und went to the library to get a new book. When she came back at five, her mother was entertaining a caller. It was a square, dark - skinned man, sprawled In a low chair, a glass of champagne between his big brown hands. "This Is my little girl, Mr. Manners." Man-ners." "Come, It was to be Ferdinand!" the man said, his voice and accent instantly betraying the Latin. "It was not," Magda countered simply, smiling. She was In something some-thing soft and cool and pale blue; she had had time to dress, time to draw shades and set the flowers about advantageously. "Are you going up to Helen's?" he was presently asking. He paid no attention to Victoria. Magda shook her head. "You're not?" tho man demanded surprised. "My little spare tire," Victoria's mother said, her arm about her. "But good gracious, take herl Connie's girl must be about her age." "No," Magda said, gently shaking shak-ing her had. "Not just now, anyway. any-way. But it must be lovely up there! I've never been there, you know. Phyllis was telling me of some place the Bravcrman place right on the water " "But that's just the place I am going to buy!" Ferdinand Manners exclaimed. When Magda presently went out of the room to bring him her Spanish shawl, he asked Victoria Vic-toria if she knew that she had a very beautiful mother. He bent his russet head over the shawL "Yes, that is a fine shawl," he said. "What does the man offer you?" Victoria was shocked. Was Mother Moth-er going to sell the famous old shawl? She saw that her mother hadn't wanted her to know. "He offers me three hundred Marsh. It's to be edged with fur for a wrap. They'll take all this off." Magda ran her fine thin hand through creamy silk fringes so stiff that they looked like cotton. Just a week later Victoria brought in a great box just delivered from Marsh's; the shawl was inside. It had been changed into a sumptuous evening wrap with a border all the way about it of soft white fur. And this gift her mother did not return. She put It away in the great trunk that always stood in her room; there was small closet space in the apartment apart-ment That same week, on another sticky sultry night Keith Herrendeen Herren-deen came in looking tired and pale at six o'clock, apparently more than ordinarily wearied by the burden and heat of the day. He sank into a chair in the sitting room that was also the dining room, where Victoria was already setting the table. "I brought you a little present Magda," he said, his face suddenly bright with a smile. "It's not much, my dear." It was an Emporium box; a white linen jacket, unlined, with a smart dark blue stripe about the collar and cuffs. The tag was still on it; he explained that she was free to exchange it if she liked. Victoria Vic-toria sent a quick apprehensive glance toward her mother. The bracelet that had cost thousands had been sent back, but the remains re-mains of the great crate of flowers, and fresh flowers, were everywhere, and deep in her mother's trunk was the beautiful shawl with its new border of pure white ermine. Mrs. Herrendeen stood fingering the linen jacket. The staring "$3.95" on a tag was in her hand, as the fringe of the shawl had been a few days ago. "It's very sweet, Keith," she said, holding her tone low. But it was no use; in a minute she was crying convulsedly, bitterly, senselessly, standing at the window, with her shaking shoulders to the room. "Don't mind me," she said thickly. "I'm crazy. Don't pay any attention at-tention to me!" "I'll be damned if 1 understand you sometimes, Magda," Keith said wearily. (TO BE COXTIXUED) |