Show HARRY pugh vill 40 CLURE installment EIGHTEEN the story so far stand and she give up her to help him buy a hamburger laura maguire 1 is wile wife ot of happy go bigger city that their marriage follows lucky mike editor and mayor of cov job as secretary laura action patched halted kathleen who despite herself becomes become ington whom banker mays threatens to up however and divorce interested in ritchie graham also a tell fell in love with lou knight methalee methods who her lather father his banking thinks ruin tor for criticizing and secretly news newspaperman she oda she Is mother ot of tour four children the town drunks drunk daughter find a nd he be carry the fight to mays foolishly hard bard pressed by the depression married her jaird she spurns his love mays offers mike to to tom in who had separated from his shirley engaged her ring a bribe wife when he decided to move from a also out of 0 a lob job who pawns CHAPTER mr eugene mays his pompous face apoplectic with rage stumbled through the outer ohl office c e and slammed the door behind him mike stood in the doorway grinning the old so and so he cried blithely have I 1 got him worried or have I 1 got him worried if yu you ask me laughed ritchie hes es on the ropes though he may drag me down with him admitted mike ruefully he and ritchie strolled arm in arm into the inner office two of a kind kathleen thou thought impractical idealists idea lists with a gay almost flippant disregard for consequences and thoroughly charming with it all you think its heroic to fling mr mays money back into his face she told mike in a thick jerky voice you think its noble to bankrupt yourself in favor of a town full of people who show their gratitude by refusing to buy your caper paper or advertise in in it you are all puffed up because you cant be bribed or scared oft off but has it ever occurred to you who really foots the bill while you do your don quixote stuff mike went quite white but kathleen could not stop its mother who bears the brunt who has borne it for years she said furiously it bother you if we any money or a decent house to live in or if the cars falling failing to pieces under us and there arent glasses enough to go around just as soon be penniless as not probably get a kick out of begging on the street corner with a tin cup but mother kathleena Kath leens voice broke do you realize ashes putting up 60 jars of watermelon preserves today in I this heat to get money toward the taxes and she had a ne new AV dress in two years she grew up with the best people in this town but she cant ant run around with them any more because she cant afford to and it fair it fairl mike did not speak but he looked almost old and his blue eyes stared at her with something stricken back of them kathleen realized abruptly that it was her father to whom she had been speaking the father she had always adored and her heart almost broke at the look in his face but the bit berness had been accumulating inside her for months she could not bite back the words although they were such dreadful wounding things the angry words she spat at mike 1 I thought you were swell she ended with a sob and I 1 guess you are but its at her expense I 1 used to take it for granted she was happy but she ashes been short changed by life and love or the brain storm that passes for love and it makes me sick thank god ill never make the same mistaken mi she whirled on her heel and walked out of the room at h her er r desk she dropped into he her chair and in stared blindly at her note pad and she quivered with the agony of what she had done ritchie stood beside her he was very white how could you he asked she flung bung out her hands in a goad ed gesture do you think I 1 liked telling him those things my daddy she sobbed once and then her face hardened 1 I dont care what you think despise me if you like it matter his long slender fingers gripped her shoulders till aill she flinched at his fierceness we do matter to each ther kathleen whether gewant it that way or not we cant escape it I 1 love you and you love me if you still think im in love with you she cried in a choked voice and picked up her telephone she was several minutes securing her connection gene this is kathleen she cried into the receiver you know that little matter youve i been trying to get me to consider ive made up my at youve won out im telling you IU ill marry you whenever you sa say y certainly ill have lunch with you to celebrate until then all of the best dear heart 0 kathleen and hot shot mays had been engaged for a week arid and a lot of good it had done him he reflected as he stared at her with morose eyes over tall frosted glasses of fruit punch in hendersons drug store kathleen had promised to marry marry him but she never had been more exasperating she had refused to wear his diamond although he had selected a handsome two carat stone impressively set in platinum she said it would be time enough for that after their engagement had been formally announced she insisted he could name the day and she would be there with the orange blossoms and a yard or two of brides veil but il if he so much as laid a finger on her she turned on him like a little jungle cat you dont own me yet she always sald said he even kissed her and six weeks ago hot shot mays would not have believed that possible have you told your folks about us yet he now demanded with asperity kathleen winced and shook her head you act as if you were ashamed of me or something hell youre doing grand to land me and you know it hows for my speaking to your father tonight all right she said at last IU ill tell dad at dinner that you have something to say to him but odd as it seems dont expect him to fall on your rieck neck he wont maybe everybody else in town will think ive pulled a fast one to grab you off but mike will hate the idea iles hes funny that way hes as funny as a hearse said ilot hot shot mays sourly but he cant go on acting the fool forever my old man says the clarion wont iasi last out the summer you arent kidding me with the bread line staring him in the face your dad will heave one sigh of relief when im his son inlaw in law you are mistaken kathleen said icily my father will never lick your boots nor anyone alses and it wont mean a thing to him that im marrying money but it does to his daughter sneered gene mays what do you think his hard blue eyes mocked her find out some day he said kathleen felt a rising tide of nausea she had thought if she married gene mays she need never worry about the cost of anything but it came to her with a thud that mrs eugene mays had paid a ghastly pr price ice for her limousine and her mansion and her trips abroad she had to make over last years 11 e f you act as if you were ashamed of me evening dresses nor had she been compelled to patch the living room curtains but she had lived with tarnished standards and bedraggled illusions her children had gro grown wn up in an atmosphere that belittled belittle d integrity and made a mock of honor no wonder her daughter had no shame and her sons strongest attribute was cruelty they had seen their mother humiliated from their cradles they had lived intimately ti with luxury purchased by their mothers acquiescence in fathers degeneracy at least laura had never known that particular hell she had drudged dredged and economized and employed every ingenious artifice to manage on mikes erratic earnings but corruption had not brushed her or hers kathleen thought of her father A quixotic egoist perhaps but clean As clean as a fierce wind from the poles mike not in but neither had he taught her children to sneer at her CHAPTER ive got to go back to the office kathleen rose abruptly you have enticed me away in the middle of the morning at least while im on the payroll I 1 can make a pretense of earning the old salary check six weeks from now said hot shot mays and the clarion payroll will have gone up in smoke kathleena Kath leens slim hands locked and that will tickle you and your father to pieces we wont shed any tears admitted hot shot mays kathleen stared into his complacent eyes and her throat tightened under a revulsion of feeling that shook her from head to foot eugene mays and his son did not deserve to triumph over mike can you shed tears I 1 mean she asked in a stifled voice if so turn on the faucet because I 1 think ive been a little goofy gooby nui i vc come to and im not marrying you hot shot mays gasped as it if the breath had been knocked out of him and his face mottled with a furious dark flush bush you cant do this to me he cried carit cant IVI I 1 kathie Kath kathleena leens ens lips curled but I 1 have ive been cuckoo I 1 think unbalanced by growing pains or something but im over it thank god and id rather die than marry you she turned and walked into the rickety building which housed the covington clarion hot shot mays stood perfectly still where she had left him his big hands clenching and un clenching helplessly but kathleen forgot him completely when she entered the newspaper office something was drastically wrong she knew it by the gray of roger waytes twitching face and the way tommy mouths mouth quivered when he looked at her and the beads of sweat on old ducky millers upper lip what is it she asked stopping quite still do you know where your father is asked roger whyte at last in a thin quaver kathleen caught her breath has something happened to my father someone was opening the door kathleen whirled it had to be mike she endure the knife that was as jabbing at her heart but it mike it was ritchie and he was very white from a great distance she heard tommy mouths thin piping voice gee mr graham you find him ritchie shook nis his head roger whyte suddenly dropped into his chair and covered his face with his hands old ducky miller calef carefully lilly polished a piece of type while slow rusty tears ran down his withered cheeks kathleen put out her hands blindly ritchie no one will tell me the matter no one knows kathleen were only afraid conyl tommy ammy south began to blubber id ought to have followed him after fr I 1 seen him going over those insurance insurance papers roger whyte shivered the premiums due tomorrow and he the cash to pay it he said he told me so yesterday he called up lawyer isgrigs this morning and asked about the insurance clause said old ducky miller wiping his eyes on his inky shirt sleeve when he told me he was worth more to his wife dead than alive kathleen clutched at a chair my father has fifteen thousand dollars worth of insurance in favor of my mother she said in a high colorless voice you think hes killed himself she felt herself breaking up shattering into a million pieces 11 kathleen cried ritchie a and nd caught aught her beating hands 1 I said everything cruel to him that I 1 could think of she whispered 1 I said h hed ed taken his fun at s expense ne her I 1 saad he and love had short changed her between them I 1 was always his favorite and now ive killed him laura stood in the center of her shabby living room and held onto her dusting rag until her fingers ached until for weeks afterward she had only to close her eyes to feel the gritty cloth clenched in her aching hands im afraid I 1 dont understand she said have to tell me again 1 I told him he had been an idealistic clown while you bore the shock of his beau gestes repeated kathleen in a dull voice 1 I said he had never been fair to you beverl I 1 twitted twisted him because youve had to wear shoes from the basement and trim your own hats and I 1 said got the dirty end of the stick although you never complained because youre not the whimpering kind I 1 asked him if it had never occurred to him what a rotten bargain you made when you refused eugene mays to marry him and I 1 sneered and inquired what he thought you had got out of it if anything lauras clear cheeks were suddenly scarlet ive had the only man I 1 ever wanted hes been mine body and soul with no reservations never once has he failed ailed me when I 1 needed his tenderness and his understanding id stake my immortal soul on his integrity hes given me my children each of them is stamped with his idealism when the blackness threatens his strong arm gathers my weakness in and strengthens it hes the rock under tinder my feet the breath in my nostrils sometimes I 1 lie beside him at night while he sleeps and my heart almost bursts with gratitude because god gave him to me TO 70 BE CONTINUE BU |