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Show - i "A shame, you girls going to all this trouble," protested Anthony, "when you might as well have come out and dined with me." bH if 1 ( ' rp ';ry 'V .J-r' V -v -'I " "'-V' -'i .;; . bH v& ok V:V!bJ5hSH8 BH Btfl Bsu ' H:tl M ? V; t.; HB K'n- p:.;., BB1 v;'' f sj'.'-V.; . it, -. & ' m "r. ' --ir .M; BBsl I , . ; ; d Vy. BsH BH ' ''T"- '' ,y arfi ' ' wjt: v, . ' BB I . ' : ' 1 I ;,,,,. - Confinurd from Preceding Paye. cried with flashing eyes, though her lips bore a sort of perplexed fie-wlldered fie-wlldered smile "What has boa of all your enthusiasm your Ore? Why, to be editor of the Beacon is B in superior to belt bn Your father, Tony, on that little paper, was a big man a gn-at "What could he reply" Could be tell her of Vilma? Of his misery, his disappointment, hi- vain ruic-f If only ho rould tell h r' Hut t hat vrar impossiblp Adela seomod to him a creature of another world, ethereal, flame-like, and so pure that to reveal such B past to her would he to lose her forever He realized suddenly that to lose her now would spell disaster for him. B She wad the emhodlmeiit (1r all that B made life worth living she wai , hope, aspii-ation, fineness, yet ;-lie was now engaged in charging him, ' and rijrhrly, with worse than futil- ity. with drabness. with common-place common-place aims and ii was true! By 'f only he had realized I 1 how much Adela meant to him' B j But growing up with a girl from B childhood is monstrously confusing. B One can hardly tell whether she Is sister or sweetheart. If only she had been in New York in those arly day before ho had met Vilma! 1 The morality of the thing did not now occupy him, but only the bitter 1 ' law of compensation. With poic- nant suffering ho was paying the price of the past, aiul jret he had thought be had paid it all before by the hideous nightmare of pain i v that culminated in hi- Joirncy lo ; London. How long and how often H! must he continue to pay? That Is H the unanswerable riddlo of the Sphinx. H; ' "Listen. Addie." he began sud- H denly with a gesture as thoush B about to lake her hand. Then he B , quickly drew back. "What do you B advise me to do?" he said. H ' Adela noted the gesture and a B j look of pain tame into her eyes. B She ignored his question B "What is it that has come be- B tween us" " jbe cried, with out- B ; stretched hands and the tears start- H ing to her eyes "Oh. tell me. An- Bjj thony. dear, what it is! Wo were B; auch friend." ! You kissed me once" Bj her voice broke "and now you're afraid to touch, my hand. . . . T might be a leper, the way you act! Oh, what have Ilone?" She Wept piteously, covering her face. "What has happened what have I done?" "Done"' he exclaimed, and ho leaned toward her and took hold of her White, tremulous wrist .. "It's not what you've done. Addle. It's what 1 haven't done." His Impulse was to take hor iu his arms and to strain her to him. "Oh. Addie don't you see? You're so line so miles and miles above me and I 1 am nothing at all." He was at a loss what further to say as he clung to her wrists. "lie doesn't care." was the bitter thought in Adela's mind, and she kept her face covered now in sheer humiliation, In fear or revealing her misery. "Life near you." she heard him say, "would bo a glory if only I deserved it. But wait, Addifj wait a little. I feel as though 1 must begin over again In so many things' With you hre your helo and sympathy and understanding I could begin to live again everything every-thing is different already." Then she realized that the bar rier. whatever it was, was still there and Impassable. Whatever it was, she had a conviction he was exaggerating it. What, after all, Tould he have done? With a little sob she lifted her head and bravely met his eyes She saw in them pain, a genuine anguish an-guish of regret or remorse, that stabbed and chilled her. Hut whv did he not tell her everything? Why had he grown so cruelly com plex that ho could not tell her, pour everything out to lier as u child might cry out to a mother when her heart was so full of him? This is what she longed to say, but could uot. The virginal soul of the girl suffers from its own reticences and limitations, even as the boy's from lack of self-knowledge and experience experi-ence The maternal element o? bev sympathy, sym-pathy, however, brought It home to her that he needed her help, and he must be made to feel that he could count on her or what good was she? "Life near you," he had said "would bo a glory." Sho smiled mistily at that thought and held out her tremulous bauds. V "My dear Tony." she said, as he took her hands between both his own, a.nd she felt tender and by far his superior in years. "We used to he such chums, such friends when we were children." sho smiled tearfully, "and we need it much more now and what have I just been doin but scolding you. in th.-old th.-old way?" He kissed both her hands ardently ardent-ly and buried his face in them like a penitent bowed before a shrine. "Addie Addie," he murmured haltingly, "don't turn away from me I need you more than ever before." be-fore." He seemed on the verge of confidences, of confession but a look of haunting ancuish swept into his eyes and his lips closed more firmly. He could not he could not speak. Nevertheless his awakening to a new exigence dated from that moment. mo-ment. CHAPTER XVii. We De Boheme. XVTHE Clarice returned, An-yy An-yy thony and Adela, with the light of new dawn in their faces, were still talking, and In her keen, unobtrusive way she glanced at them while chatting of t the softness of the weather for this time of the year, and formed pretty accurate conclusion as to the condition of affajrs "It's progressing." she said to i herself Anthony was jUtt saving , goodnight when Clarice came pirouetting pi-rouetting from her bedroom a minute min-ute 'ater. almost sinclng the words f "The Spring is in the air. chil- B -j ltTJO, IaUraatloo) I cat dren' T have a magnificent idea. I want to have a party!" "What kind of a party, dear?' queried Adela "Oh, a lovely, happy party full of joy and laughter and gayety such as only the middle-aged can get up then we shall be like children." chil-dren." "Epigrammatic lady!" from Anthony. An-thony. "Then you think the young don't know how to be gay?" "Of course they don't!" bubbled Clarice "The young are geese. They are so bys making them-; selves and each other miserable. Look at me! I am thirty to-mor-rowt-and I'd rather have a good time than cat. Look at" and she paused. "Us!" Adela caught her up. "That's what you mean, you minx Bttt you're quite wrong isn't sho, Anthony? Wed rather play with you than sleep." "Of course she's wrong'" cried Anthony. "Look at this!" And beginning to whistle the opening bars of a waltz he seized Clarice by the waist and whirled her round and round the room in spite of the carpet to a tempo violently rapid. Adela took up the tune and whistled for Anthony, who was soon iinablo to do it for himself. "Oh. dear!" gasped Clarice, spinning spin-ning away from him. out of breath. 'Do you call this a waltz or the whirl or the howling dervishes? Ehjt never mind. There's sonnet 0 be made of both of you yet we nust think It out." "Good -night," laughed Anthony, anning her as though she were in 1 faint. "You'l! do no more think- .nv Strrlce. lac. Orit Dr Ing to-night You! muck-raking the young meaning us! Get some pep. little one'" And he ran laughing out of the studio. It was long since he had been so happy. "Isn't he nice!" panted Clarice, looking searchingly at her friend. Adela flushed and did not meet her gaze. "Is there anything to eat in the strong-box. by the way?" she added. "Loads of things." said Adela, "Crackers, cheese, jam. and even bits of cold chicken. But do you know what you are, Clarice?" "Something pleasant. I hope," she murmured, moving toward the icebox. ice-box. "You're an old-fa.hioncd. sentimental senti-mental girl, that's what you af. "How lovely of you to discern it." and she turned back to l i Adela. And well sho might, for this night was tho high-water mark of Adela's existence in Now York. Adela's delight in her new existence ex-istence amounted at times to a positive pos-itive ecstasy. Often, after she came to live with Clarice in the "Ru--die would float flown rh two flights of steps leading to the pavements of Eighth avenue in a way that made the maturer inhabitants inhabi-tants of the old building sigh with envy. Whorls of the original cosmic cos-mic energy of creation seemed to vibrate In her passing. Those elderly landscape and miniature painters of both sexes who peopled the "Rubens" would have been amazed to know that this fair and electric young body contained an aching heart. To the dwellers In Mecca It is a tuia R fbu Kcfcrrwed. y commonplace to m? upon th sacred mosque and to hear tin muezzin frcro the sacred tower Both are not Improbably listed b the local telephone and butinesi directories and all the traffic doubt less leads to the sacred shrine. Bui if one has to come to them by cara van from the Libyan Desert or b pilgrimage from the Indian Ocean Mecca is a precious reward for long yearning, aspiration and sacrifice, Adela was the distant pilgrim to Mecca. It was the guerdon of hope and of toll, and she was filled with a passionate flame of enthusiasm. In the radiant hazo of her art ambitions, am-bitions, the ideals and models that floated dimly formed an inspiring Pantheon Such masters as Raphael, Raph-ael, Michael AUgelo and lonardo were by no means excluded as models to emulate. It is doubtful whether those painters who fill out empty spaces In the budget by teaching at the League realise the veneration with which such students as Adela surrounded sur-rounded them. Their slightest movement and gesture ft of profound pro-found significance, and the trail i-tlona! i-tlona! homage paid to the master palners in the Paris studios is no greater than here. It Is unfortunate that no important witer teach the art of letters. If they did. they might know the meaning of worship. wor-ship. Youth is seldom grateful to the teacher of knowledge. But the teacher of beauty it exalt to a pinnacle. Womanlike. Adela had invested Anthony with her own exuberant emotion. But as time went on and there emerged a new Anthony with something subdued and arrested In him. something that seemed Irreparably Irre-parably altered, she experienced the bitterness of disappointment in the man she loved. With the intuitive in-tuitive strategy of her years and sex she endeavored to conceal her feelings and fell upon her work with a fierce passionate ardor that udvanced her rapidly In the school. Young men among the students hung about her and constantly neglected neg-lected their work, watching cov- the diligent absorption of M this beautiful girl, who seemed like a Diana treadlug a lunar world. I They presented her with nose-gays, nose-gays, with new discoveries In pen-cils, pen-cils, brushes and cartuidge paper; pr p u i a elaborate a cideni i I for walking home with her. Hashes of kindness to those young swains H al (mated with long moods of se- H eluded devotion to her work. They fl savored to interest her In new kLH theories; they expounded futurism. cubl8mt the art of movement, d'j HiV' nam lc instead of static art. as tbf K explained. But being a woman she clung tenaciously to the past The future for her lay in other direc- LH iiH Clarice was full of her coming HH party Tt was astonishing the wav this caltrj snd weii-poised girl could LLI give herself up complete-.- to H seemingly frtvlsl idea, and work iB and Man aiul ronmve details iih " 1 Patience oe reason she added silver work to her paint- iH Ing was because she lov?d the fus iLH and detail of It. the fHJiig and shap-ng shap-ng and delicate twisting and beat-terfa? beat-terfa? bend'nc of rebellious ma- "1 like things to come out as I want them to." was an explanatory phi ; "What kind of a party fl It that !' ' aeai V Adela asked Kfrj her a day or two after he an. bHHH nouncenient. n B "I don't know yet." was the an. L111111H pver. "But I do know we are hav- ' sH tag too many serious parties ! relief iKl parties, war parties, and whn ii HBLfl v should be serving the uMvcr "' issiB by a Httle simple, childish gayetv iH AVhose children- deniamJed "Our parents' children, of rnr siiiiiifl 1 mean." shs explained. "we chlldren-we and our guests isiiiiH Are you sure pcon , . children again'" Arfl! to be iHHHH to herself. Ad(, a spoke half rtd Clarice - $ 2e"? ,ln m. no Hmgw Very well, Clarice. I gho.,t . i iHHHM fcw ..' tft8f ;ovur don t go bMow fourteonl- 'I LBLi PossibI) 4lc-n and braids RBLH ur own way d,P.. do . . out Jtf nap besides Creen-7inK J.'n LitH eighth avenue-tartSt Is b, t It was arranged And 80 Mk ' (To De Continued Nav , ISbiiB |