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Show ?SE R I AL I STORY J THE GIRL fh from Hrf HIS TOWN i MARIE VAN VORST ' UlxtraHou by M. G. KETTNER (Ujpyrlgnl, IfcUI. by Ttau Bobbs-Merriil 4.) 21 SYNOPSIS. Dan Blair, the 22-year-old pern of the 'flftv-milllon-dollar copper king of Blalr-,'town. Blalr-,'town. Mont., Is a Kuest at the English home of Lady Galorey. Dan's father had been courteous to Lord Galorey during his visit to the United States and the courtesy is now being returned to the voung man. The vouth has an Ideal girl In his mind. He meets Lily, Duchess of Breakwater, a beautiful widow, who Is attracted by his Immense fortune and lakes a lilting to her. When Dan was a boy, a girl sang a solo at a church, and he had never forgotten her. The Ga-loreys. Ga-loreys. Lily and Dan attend a London A theater where one Letty Lane Is the star. Dun recognizes her as the girl from his town, and going behind the scenes Introduces Intro-duces himself and she remembers him. He learns that Prince Ponlotowsky is suitor and escort to Letty. Lord Galorey Ga-lorey and a friend named Ruggles determine deter-mine to protect the westerner from Lily and other fortune hunters. 'Young Blair goes to see Lily: he can Talk of nothing hut Letty and this angers the Duchess. The westerner finds Letty ill from hard work, but she recovers and Ruggles and Dan Invite her to supper. She asks Dan to build a home for disappointed theatrical the-atrical people. Dan visits Lily, for the time forgetting Letty. and later announces an-nounces his engagement to the duchess. Letty refuses to sing foT an entertainment entertain-ment given by Lily. Galorey tells -Dan that all Lily cares for Is his money: and It Is disclosed that he and the duchess have been mutually In love for years. Letty slugs at an aristocratic function, Dan escorting her home. Dan confronts Galorey and Lily together. CHAPTER XX. Continued. "For God's sake!" he heard her murmur, and she Impatiently drew her cloak around her shoulders. Po-niotowsky Po-niotowsky put out his hand, to help her, but she drew back from him, exclaiming ex-claiming violently: "Oh, no no!" Before Be-fore he was aware what he was doing, Dan was holding his hand out to Miss Lane. , .. y How she turned to him! God of dreams! How she took in one cold hand his hand; just the grasp a man needs to lead him, to offer the service serv-ice of his life. Her hand was icy it thrilled him to his marrow. "Oh you " she breathed. "Hello!" No words could have been more commonplace, less in the category of dramatic or poetic welcome, but they were-music to the boy, anfi when the ctress looked at him with a ghost of Bmile on her trembling lips, Dan was sure there was some kind of blessing In the greeting. "I am going to see you home," he said with determination, and she caught at it: "Yes, yes, do! Will you?" The third member of the party had I not spoken. A servant fetched him V a light to which he bent, touching his fv igar. Then he lifted, his head a f v' ihandsome one with its cold and in-, in-, different eyes, to Letty Lane. ' "Good night, Miss Lane." A deep color crept under his dark skin. "Come." said the actress eagerly, "come along; my motor is out there and I am crazy tired. That is all there is about it. Come along." Snatched from a marriage contract, still bitter from his jealous anger, this to be alone with her by the side of tills while, fragrant, wonderful creature crea-ture to have been turned to t)y 'her, to be alone with her, the duchess of Breakwater out of his horizon, Ponio-towsky Ponio-towsky gone Oh, it was sweet to him! They had rolled out from the Carlton down toward the square and 'be put his arm around her waist, his voice shook: "You are dead tired! And when I saw that brute with you tonight I sould have shot him." "Take your arm away, please." "Why?" i "Take it :nway. I don't like it: Let my hand go. What's the matter with ,x you? I thought I could trust you." . ' He said humbly: "You can certainly certain-ly you can." " "' am tired tired tired!" Under his breath he -said: "Put Vo head on my shoulder, Lettv, darling" dar-ling" And she turned on him nearly as violently as she had on Ponlotowsky. and burst into tears, crouching almost In the corner of the motor away from him. both her hands upon her breast. "Oh, can't you see how you bother me? Can't you see I want to rest and be all alone? You are like them all-like all-like them all. Can't I rest anywhere?" j The very words she used were those he had thought of when he saw her dance at the theater, and his heart broke within him. 'ou can," he stammered, "rest right here. God knows I want you to r,st more than anything. I won't touch you or breathe again or do auy-lllng auy-lllng you don't want me to." She covered her face with her bands and sat so without speaking to hm- The light in her motor shone 0Ver ber like a kindly star. as. wrapped in her filmy things, she lay, J a white rose blown into a sheltered nook. After a ilittle she wiped her yes and said more naturallv: What have you been doing with your-1 self?" They had reached the Savoy. It seemed to Dan they were always just driving up to where some one opened a door, out of which she was to fly away from him. He got out before her and helped her from the car. "Well, I've got a piece of news to tell you. I have broken my engagement engage-ment with the duchess." This brought her back far enough into life to make her exclaim: "Oh, 1 am glad! That's perfectly fine! I, don't know when I've heard anything that pleased me so much. Come and see me tomorrow and tell me all about it'." CHAPTER XXI. Ruggles Returns. Dan did not fall asleep until morning, and then he dreamed of Blairtown and the church and a summer sum-mer evening and something Jike the drone of the flies on the window pane soothed him, and came into his waking wak-ing thoughts, for at noon he was violently vio-lently shaken by the shoulder and a man's voice called him as he opened his eyes and looked into Ruggles' face. "Gee Whittaker!" Ruggles exclaimed. ex-claimed. "You are one of the seven sleepers! I've been here something like seventeen minutes, whistling and making all kinds of barnyard noises." As Dan welcomed him, rubbing the sleep from his eyes, Ruggles told him that he had come over "the pond" just for the wedding. "There isn't going to be any wedding, wed-ding, Josh! Got out of all that last night." Ruggles had the breakfast card in his hand, which the waiter had brought in, and Dan, taking it from his friend, ordered a big breakfast. "I'm as hungry as the dickens, Rug, and 1 guess you re, too." "What was i the matter with the duchess?" Ruggles asked. "Were you too young for her, or not rich enough ?" Significantly the boy answered: "One too many, Josh," and Ruggles winced at the response. "Here are the fellows with my trunks and things," he announced as the porters came in with his luggage. Dan Caught Her in Her Dark Dress, the Flowers In Her Bodice, to His Heart. , - "Just drop them there, boys; they're going to fix some kind of a room later." Blair's long silk-lined coat iay on a chair where he had flung it, his hat beside It. and Ruggles went over to the corner and lifted up a fragrant glove. It was one of Letty Lane's gloves which Dan had found In the motor and taken possession of. The young man had gone to his dressing room and begun running his bath, and Ruggles, laying the glove on the table. : said to himself: . "I knew he would get rid of the ' duchess, all right." But when Dan came back into the room later In his dressing gown for breakfast, Ruggles said: "You'll have to send her back her glove, Dannie." At the sight of It beside the breakfast break-fast tray 'Dan blushed scarlet. He picked up the fragrant object. "That's all right; I'll take care of it." "Is "Mandalar" running the same as ever?" Ruggles sked over his bacon and eggs. "Same as ever." Ruggles saw he had not returned In vain, and that he was destined to take up his part of the business ju6t as he had laid It out for himself to Lord Galorey. "It's up to me now: I'll have to take care of tbe actress, and I'm darned if I haven't got a job. If Dan colors up like that at the sight of her glove. I wonder what he does when he holds her hand!" CHAPTER XXII. What Will You TakeT When Dan, on the minute of two, went to the Savoy, Higgins, as was her custom, did not meet him. Miss Lane met him herself. She was reading read-ing a letter by the table, and when Dan was announced she put it back in ! its envelope. Blair had 6een her onlj ! in soft clinging dresses, in white vis- I ionary clothes, or in her dazzling part ! costume, where the play dress of the dancer displayed her beauty and her charms. Today she wore a tailor-made tailor-made gown, and in her dark cloth dress, In her- small hat, she seemed a new woman some one he hadn't known and did not know, and he experienced ex-perienced the thrill a man always feels when the woman he loves appears In an unaccustomed dress and suggests a new mystery. "Oh, I say! You're not going out, are you?" In the lapel of her close little coat was a flower he had given her. He wanted to lean forward and kiss it as it rested there. She assured him: "I have just come in; had an early lunch and took a long walk think ol it! I haven't taken a walk alone since I can remember!" Her walk had given her only the ghost of a flush, which rose over her delicate skin, fading away like a furling furl-ing flag. Her frailness, her slender-i ness, the air of good breeding her dress gave her, added to Dan's deep-: ening emotions. She seemed Infinitely Infinite-ly dear, and a thing to be protected and fostered. "Can't you sit down for a minute? I've come to make you a real call." "Of course," she laughed. "But, first, I must answer this letter." His Jealousy rose and he caught hold of her hand that held the envelope. enve-lope. "Look here, you are not to write it If It is to that damned scoundrel. scoun-drel. I took you away from him last night and you are never to see him again." For the first time the two really : looked at each other. Her lips parted part-ed as though she would reprove him, and the boy murmured: "That's all right. . I mean what I say never to see him again! Will: you promise me? Promise me I can't bear it! I won't have it!" A film of emotion crossed his clear young eyes and her slender hands1 were held fast In his clasp. His face was beautiful in its tenderness and in a righteous anger as he bent It on her. Instead of reproving him as sha had done before, instead of snatching away her hands, she swayed, and at the sight of her weakness his eyes cleared, and the film lifted like a curtain. cur-tain. She was not fainting, but, as her face turned toward his, he saw it transformed, and Dan caught her in her dark dress, the flowers in her. bodice, bod-ice, to his heart. ' He held her as if he had snatched her from a wreck and in a safe embrace lifted her high to the shore of a coral strand. He kissed her, first timidly, wonderingly, with the sacrament of first love on his lips. Then he kissed her as his heart bade him, and when he set her free she was crying, but the tears on his face were not all her tears. "Little boy, how crazy, how perfectly perfect-ly crazy! Oh, Dan Dan!" She clung, to him, looking up at him Just as his boy-dreams had told him a girl would look some day. Her face was suffused and softened, her lips her coral-red, fine, lovely lips were trembling, and her eyes were as gray, as profound as those seas his imagination had longed to explore. Made poet for the first time in his life, as his arms were around her, he whispered: "You are all my dreams I come true. If any man comes near you I'll kill him Just as sure as fate. I'll kill him!" "Hush, hush! I told you you were crazy. We're both perfectly mad. I have tried my best not to come to this with you. What would your father say? Let me go, let me go; I'll call Higgins." (TO BE COXTIN'L'ED.) |
