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Show f IE LIFE I? Ml PHI ' O D. AppUton Century Co.. In. WNU Sarvio Lil'' I 1 1 SYNOPSIS vj Young Rex Hale calls on Casper Knee- U land, friend of his father, In New York, I and finds him proudly successful but y slrangeiy preoccupied. He tells Hale of $ . his wife's death while Insane, invites him for the summer to Halcyon Camp, V, his home on Long Island, and promises i him he will be "useful" as his secretary there. Hale Is Joined at lunch by Fred V .Ainsworth, an unpopular college mate, j also at Halcyon, who leaves him with ; 'a feeling of unpleasant mystery. He :1s met at the train by Mrs. Wilbur !! ; 'Nash, whom he questions about the ! ; menage, and experiences a disturbing j ' premonition. The premonition is barely . eased by the comfortable hospitality of f- Hosanna, Kneeland's elderly sister, and I iher friend, Ruth Forbes, middle-aged so- Iphisticate. In his room, Hale finds a : : soiled paper, printed, "This plase dan- I Jerous." Hale meets the rest of the strange group Dr. Craig, psychiatrist friend of Bert Kneeland, nervous young son of Casper, and beautiful but moody v Joan Kneeland, niece of the house. Ains- worth drops In at his room, questions ( him about his reactions and tells him of Bert's hopeless love for his heiress cousin, and that Mrs. Forbes is down and out. The whole group seem to get 'on each other's nerves. Later, Hale sees Hosanna furtively meeting a shabby man In the woods. The maid tells of the II recent poisoning of a cat and dog. Mrs. Nash suggests that Ainsworth has some hold on them. Returning from a swim. Hale Pnds In his room a clever ketch of skull and crossbones. CHAPTER m Continued "Doctor Craig goes In for re- . search," Mrs. Spencer Forbes com-'; com-'; 1 . mented acidly. "He makes experi- J ments. He has germs up there. Probably he'll end by killing us all I off." . "Ruth!" Miss Hosanna's manner was preoccupied, her gaze detached. J She had uttered the little protest ; , from force of habit. Rex suspected ! y that she had not really taken in what ,.1 - her friend had said. "I wouldn't put it past him," Ruth I Spencer Forbes went on in her char-i, char-i, a.cteristic drawl. "No animal, hu- man or otherwise, is safe here. I ' shall always believe he killed that 1 dog and cat!" "Ruth! It's dreadful or you to run , ... l on like this. What will Mr. Hale think of us?" lift Miss Hosanna was really aroused now, and almost annoyed, almost, but not quite. She could never be ( ! really annoyed by anything her Ruth said. ,'J.' "He'll think as I do, after he has X7t observed our dear doctor a little. I Craig is a vivisectionist. Every -v time he looks at me I know he's 'Ull considering my possibility on the dissecting table. I tola him one " day theyjvere far beyorid him, and : 8 .he ajjtfeed" politely:--fle'd love to H- ij, a scalpel in you? brain, Ho-! Ho-! f He thinks you're a little the question of. food, and )w why you have to ) jiat," Miss Hosanna f iio reflection on you. He afi we're all more or less crazy, ?jfi of course we are. What's your ;sjT articular mania, Rex?" ' "You." Hale didn't know how she had - learned his first name, and he didn't care. He was enjoying his lunch- eon. The race and his subsequent nap had given him a fine appetite. As a side interest he was watching Joan Kneeland. Odd what a tragic look her charming face wore at times. He tried to catch her eyes -i and failed. She was staring straight . before her with a rather fixed look ; "Will you take me for a walk this I afternoon, Miss Kneeland?" he asked her. "I begin to feel the urge to know all about this region and its traditions. I want to see the Lovers' Leap and the Water Fall and the Wishing Spring." "There isn't any Lovers' Leap or Wishing Spring," Joan said practically. practi-cally. :S "Then we'll make some. We've simply got to have them. Whoever J heard of a camp in the woods that didn't have little things like that? How about right after lunch. A lit-tie lit-tie stroll from two to four would suit me down to the ground." Rex let his tongue have its way. ::' She had made him feel on the float this morning that she rather liked u his irresponsible chatter. "We'll make it two to three," she , : said. ; "What this young man really , f needs," Mrs. Spencer Forbes mur-:.j mur-:.j mured, "is a quiet afternoon by i" the fireside with a congenial mind. With an older woman, say, who un-derstands un-derstands him and will let him talk t s about himself all the time." v "I can't resist that program," Rex ii admitted. "Shall we say the living-room, living-room, from four to five?" Jr Mrs. Spencer Forbes nodded. "See that you don't wear him out in the meantime," she warned Joan. She strolled out of the dining-room with the air of having no further use for either of them. The walk was a slight disappoint-K disappoint-K ment to the young man. The wood V paths, of which there were many, were so narrow that two could not 1 walk abreast in them a flaw Hale kj at once discovered and referred to Z-i critically. The road was too rough C'' for good walking. They went for-Jff for-Jff ward in single file, perforce, and I"5 Joan showed her companion, rather perfunctorily, the spots where she , was planting wild flowers. He ex-pressed ex-pressed admiration, also perfunctor-1 perfunctor-1 lly. She was making him feel that Ills' his voice could not reach her across the vast gulf between them. "They don't thrive," she admitted. admit-ted. "The soil is too sandy. Nothing Noth-ing does well in it but these evergreens." ever-greens." "We'll have to get some richer earth for them and bring it here. I'll help you," Hale promised. "I'm quite a gardener. I wrote an essay once on how to tell the trees from the flowers. I can always distinguish distin-guish them, unless I'm confused by seeing flowers on the trees. Pomegranates Pome-granates mixed me up badly. It was so hard to tell where the tree ended and the flowers began." "Are you ever serious?" Joan asked suddenly. "Not if I can help it. I'll try to be if you'd rather I was." She shook her head. "No. It's a pleasant change to have someone around who isn't worried wor-ried and unhappy." Rex, who was leading, stopped short, turned, and faced her. "Miss Kneeland," he asked very seriously, "Why are you worried and unhappy?" For an instant he thought she was about to tell him. She hesitated, hesitat-ed, then hedged. "Why is anyone anything else?" she asked. "How can anyone be?" "It's very odd to hear you say "I was just saying that this is the life!" that," he told her. "You have so much to live for." "Have I? That shows how much you know about it." She had closed a door in tis face and had closed It definitely. Goae was the understanding of those moments in the sea and on the float only a few hours ago. He took his cue. "I'm rather cheerful myself," he said easily. "It's natural- I came back to America feeling forlorn and expecting to be at loose ends all summer. Then everything changed with a rush. I called on your uncle, he invited me here, and here I am. It's incredible luck."' She gave him a strange look. "Do you think so? Do you really expect to be happy at Halcyon Camp?" "Of course I do." "Then be happy if you can." He turned in silence, and continued contin-ued the journey along the narrow path. A repentant voice came from behind him. "I was a beast," it said. "I'm sorry. Do be happy. I really want you to be." "Thank you." "You know," she went on slowly, "you're so cheerful, when all the rest of us are so down, that it's a sharp contrast. Sometimes it's a pleasant one. Sometimes it's a strain." wretches like me slave in the hot city. It was almost a hundred in New York today. I don't believe it's more than sixty here this minute, min-ute, even with the fire. I've worked in my shirt sleeves all day, and with my collar off." "But think of the reward, sir," Ainsworth purred. "Rolling up more millions in your great factory while poor devils like Hale and Craig and me wonder how we're going to pay our laundry bills." The effect of the comment was immediate and striking. It stopped Kneeland's outpourings as thoroughly thorough-ly as if it had been a hand on his mouth. He frowned, and turned to the fire. Banks came In with cocktails. Kneeland aroused himself and drank two. Hale spoke of his woodland wood-land walk. No one was interested or pretended to be. In despair he threw a conversation ball to Mrs. Spencer Forbes. She could be depended de-pended on to catch and return it while there was life in her. They all went in to dinner while she was giving her impressions of Mrs. Wilbur Wil-bur Nash. The impressions were witty and entirely merciless. Miss Hosanna said "Ruth!" and smiled forgivingly. Mr. Kneeland checked his sister's warning discourse on raw oysters with a lifted forefinger, 's "I see." Neither, spoke again for some time. Then Joan returned to the subject of the wild flowers. They both held to it, as to a blazed trail, till they got back to the house. Kneeland came for his week-end the next day, which was Friday. Hale was in his own room when his new employer arrived. Sometime after six he heard Kneeland's car, or one he assumed was Kneeland's, making its difficult way along the impossible road. He suppressed an impulse to go down stairs and meet his host. They would have plenty of meetings, no doubt, between now and Monday morning. He descended descend-ed at seven for the cocktails he had learned were served at that time. Everyone was there, as usual, usu-al, dressed for dinner. Casper Kneeland Knee-land was talking rather pompously as Hale entered the living-room. He stopped long enough to shake hands and mutter a perfunctory greeting. Then he went on impressively. "I was just saying that this is the life," he declaimed. "Here you all are, cool, calm, and comfortable, sitting around a fire and hearing the sea bocm outside, while unlucky and Joan asked her uncle if he would take her out in Bert's motor-boat motor-boat the next day, if Bert would lend it. He said he would but that it would be a crime, with three yiur.g fellows around the house eager to do it. Ainsworth remarked pleasantly that he was very fond of motor-boats but that he had never been able to afford one. No one paid any attention to him. Hale was talking with an almost desperate desper-ate sense of the need of doing so, and Joan and Herbert backed him up. Mrs. Spencer Forbes tossed in an occasional remark that was like a fire-cracker thrown into a small grate. The talk was almost animated. ani-mated. Even Craig was suddenly moved to take part in it. Something Some-thing that was said by Herbert reminded re-minded him of a peculiar psychiatric psychia-tric case on which he discoursed at great length. It fascinated Ainsworth Ains-worth but did not appeal to Herbert or Joan. Both listened to it in blank silence. Hale checked further medical medi-cal reminiscences by resolutely engaging en-gaging Mrs. Spencer Forbes and Joan in an argument about a book all three of them had read. It worked, but he palmed his brow as he left the table. It had been a hard job to keep those people going. go-ing. He had experienced a ceaseless cease-less undersense that something was wrong. In the living-room Joan was already al-ready seated between Miss Hosanna and her uncle. In desperation Hale drifted toward the piano. "Must you sing, old man?" Ainsworth Ains-worth asked anxiously. "I know you always had the urge at Ithaca, but I thought you might have lived it down." "I'm worse than ever." Hale, who had had no notion of singing till then, resolutely sat down before the instrument He had a pleasant barytone voice, fairly well trained, and he could play well enough to accompany himself without with-out annoying his hearers. He sang a Spanish love song. Joan rose and came to the piano, anticipating the action of Mrs. Spencer Forbes, who obviously had the same impulse. "I like that," Joan said. "Sing another, please." He made room for her on the long piano stool, and she sat down beside him. He sang two more songs and then played a few Spanish melodies mel-odies as an undercurrent to their talk. They said nothing of interest, but it was a pleasant half hour. At the end of it Casper Kneeland got up, came over to them, and dropped a hand on Hale's shoulder. "Glad you have some parlor tricks, my boy," he commented. "They'll brighten us up. Just now I want you to come to my study for a chat," In the study Kneeland waved Hals to an armchair, uttered a few platitudes, plati-tudes, offered the young man a cigar, ci-gar, and took one himself. When the cigars were lighted and drawing well, he looked at Hale in frowning silence. Rex waited. He had long ago learned that when something important was to be said it was well to let the other fellow do the preliminary pre-liminary talking. He actuaUy dreaded dread-ed the first sentence, for he had a premonition of what it would be. It was what he had expected. Kneeland Knee-land brought out, "Well, what do you think of us?" ' Hale laughed. "This is the fourth time I've been asked that question and I've only been here forty-eight hours." "Who were the other three?" "Ainsworth was the first, I think." "He would be," Kneeland commented com-mented grimly. "Who were the others?" oth-ers?" "Mrs. Spencer Forbes and Mrs. Nash. There was nothing personal in the question, I think. They were simply making talk." "Perhaps. But I'm doing more than that. I want to know what you really think of the people here." "Well, sir, since you put it that way, I can only say they don't hit me as quite normal. They've all got something serious on their minds. Most of us have, but we usually have the power to throw it off at times. These people haven't They seem I suppose obsessed is the word I want Perhaps that's too strong. Perhaps it holds more than I mean. But they're all under high tension." "You mean they're all worrying about something?" "Not necessarily. In fact, hardly at all. Ainsworth certainly isn't worrying. He's having a grand time worrying everybody else. Craig i3 entirely selfish and self-centered. I suppose he's out for success and can't think of anything but that Certainly Cer-tainly he doesn't seem able to talk about anything but the human brain and its vagaries. Still, I don't get the feeling that he's worried." (TO BE CONTINUED) |