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Show Maiden S, KATHLEEN W kyh S NOURISH 1 rPY COPYRIGHT, KATHLEEN NORRIS ' W.N.U. S E.RVICE. CHAPTER XXIV Continued 22 He saw her shoulders shake and knew that she was crying; suddenly, sud-denly, In a rage, she was on her feet again. "How dared- he how dared he do that!" she said, her eyes glittering dark blue In her white face. "How dares a man treat a woman who loves him that way ! Ah, but she wanted him," Tony said, crumpling, speaking gently, hopelessly hope-lessly again. "She wanted him, and Larry's so kind so generous " A silence, during which the man smoked and watched her. Then, suddenly, she looked up, spoke quietly, qui-etly, as If she were very tired: "I'm sorry to treat you to these fireworks, Joe. You're awfully kind to me. I'm all right now. I think maybe you'd better take me to Bendy's; I'll have to tell Bendy, and Alvin will smile his smug little whiskery doctor smile at what happens hap-pens to girls who fall in love with married men. "I'll get used to It after a minute. You do. Even when a man's arm Is cut off, or his leg, they say he gets used to It like that in a second. I wish I could hate Larry. I wish " For a moment her whole body was In revolt, as if touched by a hot Iron, her arms flung up, her head thrown back, and her mouth opened as If to find breath. "I couldn't do a thing like that to a dog !" she whispered, collapsing again. "I could not, Joe. It's me It's me this Is happening to; no, I couldn't do it to anyone! I'm sorry. I'm really all right now. I'll get my things. Bendy'll worry if I'm too late." "No, you just lie there on the settle set-tle and think about It for a while, and I'll tell Brenda, If she telephones, tele-phones, that the company's leaving and that I'll bring you home. Lie there a while and get your breath, and you'll be all right." His big hands punched pillows behind be-hind her back as Tony obediently stretched herself on the fireside seat. She lay there passive, her eyes on the fire, her breast still occasionally rising and falling on a great sigh. "It doesn't somehow seem like Larry," Tony presently offered In a weak little voice. "Larry was never what you thought he was." "It hurts me somehow It hurts me horribly to have you say that." "I suppose it does." "Larry Is the only man the only one who ever whom I ever " the girl began confusedly, and stopped. "And that hurts me horribly, so honors are even," Joe said. "It Is impossible for me to believe be-lieve that you think of me what I think of Larry," Tony presently recommenced. "We're all playing a lone hand in this life, aren't we, Joe?" "I don't think of you what you think of Larry," Joe said flatly. Tony's ringed eyes moved to him In weary Inquiry. "Don't?" "No. I know you, Tony, and you don't know Larry. I'm not knocking him, mind you," Joe said. "But I say you don't kuow him. I do know you. I know every lovely Inch of you. I know that you're the woman for me, and that I'm the husband for you. We're alike. We like the game things. We talk the same language. lan-guage. "You and Larry aren't alike. I'm not saying this to make you feel any better. I know you feel rotten tonight. And you will feel rotten ; It'll take you a long time to get straight about It. But I say that you love well, this place, and the ocean and the kitchen and Bendy's kids, and the dogs, and all that, lie doesn't. He's Lorenzo the Magnificent." Mag-nificent." The girl laughed weakly ; her face crinkled Into tears. "Oh, he Is," she said In a whisper. whis-per. "Ruth was rich ; Larry's probably Inherited n fortune. She may have left a dozen legacies, but Gran was rich, and Ruth would have inherited inherit-ed Gran's money, and he gets It all, or certainly most of It. He's rich now; he likes it that way." "Ah, that's not quite fair." "Maybe not. But about things like that you and Larry never would have seen eye to eye." Tony was not listening. nor long wet lashes glittering In the soft lamplight, she was looking thoughtfully at the fire. "Oh, Joe, why did It have to happen this way? Why did I have to he the woman to live through this?" There was a long silence. "I don't know." said Joe then, pulling on his i ipe, and Tony's unhappy un-happy little laugh died away Into another long pause when neither spoke. Where his thoughts went the girl neither knew nor cared. To Tony all the world was composed com-posed of just two persons, a beautiful beau-tiful woman, sinuous and jeweled in the exquisite thin robes of fine batiste and delicate laces that Caroline Caro-line especially loved ; a tall brown man with his arms about her. "You women are strange," said Joe. "Are we?" "You bet your life you are." "You know you know damn well that what you feel for Larry Is excitement, curiosity. You think It would be thrilling to have him carry you off to a suite at the Fairmont Fair-mont hotel, make love to you." "Thank you," Tony said drily, as he paused, pondering over his pipe. "Well, Isn't It true?" "It is not true." "Knowing," Joe continued, as If there had been no Interruption, "knowing that whatever lasts In marriage, that doesn't. Knowing that It can't last, It never does whatever It Is that thrill that he gives women, that makes them say, 'I'd rather have him mean to me in that magnificent way of his, keep me waiting, despise me, throw me down, than not have him at all !' " Tony swallowed; spoke lightly: "Is that the way women feel to him?" "You know it." "I do not know It," she said In a low, hurt tone. She lay silent, staring at the fire. After a while she stirred and said that she must go, and Joe making no protest, she pulled on her old gloves and they went out Into the cold sharpness of the night together. At the door she leaned against him. "I wish I could stay here, alone with you, forever, and never see any of them any of them, again !" "Why don't you?" "You could go into town of Mondays, Mon-days, Joe, and come back on Thursdays. Thurs-days. I'd be completely happy alone with the dog and Rita. She'd come over and sleep nights if I was frightened." "Stay, If you like," Joe said. "You're so tremendously comforting comfort-ing to me," said Tony, her eyes shut, her head resting against his shoulder for a moment. "I'm so sorry about all this!" "I'm going up to town tomorrow tomor-row early about nine. Shall I stop for you?" he asked practically, after aft-er a moment. "Will you? I think 111 not tell Bendy tonight. I'll wait until Al-vln's Al-vln's gone tomorrow and tell her then. I'll have to face every one Aunt Meg, Mary Rose; she'll pity me so that I'll want to kill her." "Married !" Tony breathed to herself her-self In an almost Inaudible undertone, under-tone, out of her own thoughts. On the trip to Brenda's house she did not speak again. CHAPTER XXV "Y)0 YOU still feel that you want to see him again?" Joe asked. Tony's face dimpled as she looked thoughtfully down at the sand she was marking Into even ridges with a hit of silvery smooth driftwood. "Not as I did," she said, coloring color-ing a little as she smiled. "Almost willing to take a chance that half your children will be Dutchy-looldng little blonds?" "Almost. I love Dutchy little blonds." Joe lay silent for a while In the warm sand. Presently he said: "Well, I Imagine you'll have your chance soon." "My chance?" "To see him." "Oh, yes, that. Now that your grandmother's dead they'll probably prob-ably come West." She fell to musing, and Joe pulled his cap a little farther down over his eyes and appeared to dream. "After the otlice yesterday this Is heaven," Tony presently said. "Is there anything In tho whole world more wonderful than an autumn sea, and gulls, and waves coming in, and sunshine like this?' "It's swell," Joe murmured Inelo-qtiently. Inelo-qtiently. "Autumn sunshine." Tony went on after a space. "Fure and thin and sad, somehow. Cosmos Instead In-stead of lilacs, and figs Instead of cherries, and that soft veil over the sea." And unexpectedly she concluded con-cluded with vigor: "I adore it!" Joe laughed lazily. "You almost had me In tears, Tony. Ton were going on Into the sere, the yellow leaf, your voice getting sadder and sadder. I thought you were going to end up . with the death of Little Nell." i Tony laughed, too, a trifle shame- facedly. "Well, I do love It autumn." She meditated deeply. "Spring first," she decided, "then autumn. Then winter, win-ter, and then summer." "Summer last of all?" "Oh, yes don't you think so?" "Well, I like corn on the cob." "Yes, and peaches," Tony conceded. conced-ed. "But there's something so cocksure cock-sure about summer." "Winter's one long revel of drag-lng drag-lng wood in, down here." "And wet walks, and rain sluicing sluic-ing down, and pancakes for breakfast break-fast !" "Not that you often touch them." "I know. But I love that warm kitcheny smell of hot butter and sirup and hot cakes on a freezing morning." "If they come through with the Rio offer " " 'If they come through !' What nonsense! Why, they're begging you on their knees." "Well, then, if I accept the Rio offer No, but what do you suppose sup-pose they eat for breakfast In Rio?" "Coffee and melons and sour bread and fried chicken," Tony answered an-swered readily. "Will you go to Rio with me, Tony?" "Do you want me to, Joe?" "Yo' knows ah do, honey." "I reckon yo' does." They basked on in the mild sunshine, sun-shine, and the lazy waves came punctually In a smother of emerald emer-ald and Ivory over the near-by rocks, spread In interlocking circles on the strip of sandy beach, and went away again, leaving the little pools brimming, and the silky purple pur-ple and blue ribbons, weeds and mussel shells glittering and dripping- "You're easy on my old eyes," the man said presently, glancing up. "I love to have you think so. We ought to go up pretty soon; Bendy was going to telephone about dinner." din-ner." "I thought they had company." "They have. But it was only Cliff and Mary Rose. And if Patricia was all right they said they might all come, over." "I hope nobody comes!" They climbed the great ridges of rock up to the cliff level and were at the garden's end, where the new brick paths and the tall roses and chrysanthemums were rustling In "Not as I Did," She Said, Coloring a Little. the afternoon airs, and the slender beeches sent trim shadows across the lawn. In this setting, and with the descending sun flashing In every ev-ery window, the square-cut house did not look too awkward; there was a pleasant air of green-and-white seaside hospitality about It and Its open windows and awninged terrace. "I love this house," Tony said, as they went in. "It was my escape In the darkest hours of my life from everything even myself. I used to come down here from the office, beaten, broken, and the silence si-lence of it, and your not questioning question-ing me, not watching me. I'm very fond of you I" In that last phrase she was addressing ad-dressing the fireplace ; she laid her cheek against It She had helped him build It "Do we need a fire?" "We will, as soon as the sun goes down. We might as well, for If they're coming the room's bound to seem cool." "You know, Tony," said Joe, on his knees with logs In his long brown hands, "you were bound to run Into something like like what you did run into. I wouldn't grudge it, if I were you." "Grudge It?" "Yep. I wouldn't let myself resent re-sent it feel that I was out of luck falling In love with a man I couldn't have. If you hadn't done that you'd have married one of those fellows In the office. Did you ever think of that?" She was in the deep leather chair, watching him seriously. "I suppose that's so." "It's so of every woman like you ; It has to be so. You were young In lots of ways, old In lots of ways, eager and impulsive and mad to live. You just had to run your head Into something." "I wonder," Tony said, frowning faintly, looking away. "You changed for Larry; you grew up. You were well, like those pictures In Bendy's hook, when you first met him. You grew older and wiser anil lovelier." "And better and more beautiful?" Tony suggested in the pause. "You know it's true. You're one of the successful women of San Francisco now. You're certainly one of the loveliest." "Joe," Tony began, after a pause. He flung down an armful of logs. "Shoot." "Do you suppose a person ever could come to be glad of of anything any-thing like that like what hurt me and humiliated me and made me hate myself and every one else?" "I think," Joe said, standing panting pant-ing on the hearth, looking down at her, "I think that's just one of the things one might be glad of." "A la Browning," Tony suggested. "'Then welcome each rebulT that turns earth's smoothness rough.' " "Exactly a la Browning. And a la every one who ever really grew up. Larry's never really grown up, you know, and neither has Caroline." Caro-line." Tony was not listening. Her eyes, fixed in reluctance and apprehension, appre-hension, were looking straight through the eastern windows toward the stretch of farm road that curved to the highway a mile away. "Company !" she exclaimed disgustedly. dis-gustedly. "Oh, hell," Joe said simply. "And I don't know that car, and I don't recognize that man who's driving " "It's a chauffeur there's a man and woman in the back damn!" Joe said, looking over her shoulder. They turned toward the terrace door and together went out to meet the visitors in the car. "It's Larry," Tony said then. "Larry and Caroline." She dropped a suddenly cold hand to meet Joe's, warm and hard and waiting. "I'm In for it now !" The newcomers descended ; there was a little laughing confusion of hand-clasping and kissing on the terrace. Larry was heavier than he had been, Tony thought, but as handsome and brown, as shrewd of gray eyes as ever ; Caroline was at the peak of her exotic and startling star-tling beauty. In dashing black and white, with a great scarf tied under un-der chin, gauntlets with flaring cuffs, a great silver fox skin linked about her shoulders, and a hat about six weeks In advance of the mode on her satin black hair, she instantly made Tony, In her brown pumps and pleated skirt and sweater, sweat-er, feel like a little girl. "Tony, luck to find you here!" Larry said. "I was going to riug you up tomorrow." Did he mean It? Or was he just a little confused? Tony could not tell. She was only overwhelmingly overwhelming-ly conscious that the dreaded moment mo-ment had come: she was speaking to Lawrence Bellamy again. "You didn't let us know!" she stammered. "You must both lunch with us tomorrow," to-morrow," said Caroline. "When'd you get in, Larry?" This was Joe. "Just this morning. We hadn't been in an hour before we tried to telephone, but they said you couldn't be readied by telephone." "I have one, though. But it's not in the book." "Joe, what's this about Rio?" demanded de-manded his sister. "Oh, they want me to go down there for three years for the Foundation. It's a pip of a chance." "And are you going? Let's not let him, Tony !" "It's a wonderful chance," Tony said. "But let's stop freezing out here and get warm !" They all went in to the Are; Larry sent the driver away with careful instructions. "Get your dinner at the hotel, and come back at nine. Joe, you can give us dinner?" "Can we, Tony?" "Joe, we're buried In food. We've ham, we've enchiladas, we've alligator pears." "Oh, fine!" Larry said. He gripped their hands in a hearty, happy manner. "He can't always have been like this!" Tony thought. "Tony, Joe," he said, "it seems good to get back" and hear your voices again and have Tony planning for meals ! Meals seem to be your fate, Tony." "Don't they?" "And how are you all your aunt, and Cliff and Brenda?" "All flourishing. My brother Bruce has a political job in Sacramento Sacra-mento now, and he stays up there. Cliff's married, you know, and they have a baby girl. Bendy has two boys, and feels that she ought to write a book to tell other mothers how babies should be raised." (TO BE COXT1XUED) |
