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Show SaVALIANT5 sfVMNE Wm c" HALLE ERMINE DIVES lil 1LLU5TRATION5 6r LAUREN STOUT J I SYNOPSIS. John Valiant, a rich socloiy favorite, Burl.li-nly discovftrH tliat tht; Valiant cor-poratir.n. cor-poratir.n. wlih h his father founded and which was the principal source of nis wealth, has failed. He voluntarily turns over his private fortune to the receiver for the corporation. His entire remaining possessions consist of an old motor car. a white hull l(m and Itamory court, a neglected neg-lected estate In Virginia. On the way to pamory court he meets Shirley and-rldge. and-rldge. an auburn-haired beauty, and decides de-cides rhat he is going to like Virginia Immensely. Im-mensely. Shirley's mother. Mrs. Dand-rfOLe. Dand-rfOLe. and Major Bristow exchange reminiscences rem-iniscences during which It Is revealed the major. Valiant's father, and a nun named Sasson were rivals for the hand of Mrs. Dandrtdgo In her youth. Rasson anil Valiant fought a duel on her tiyount in which the former was killed Valiant tinds liamory court overgrown with weeds and creepers and the buildings build-ings In a very much neglected condition. He decides to rehabilitate the place and ' make the land produce a living for him. Valiant s.-ves Shlrlev from the bite of a Bnake. whVh bites him. Knowing the deadliness K'f the bite. Shirley sucks the poison from tie wound and saves his life. Shirley tells rier mother of tile Incident and the lattivr Is strangely moved at hearing that a Valiant is again living at Damory court. CHAPTER XVI Continued. The major nodded, "Ah. yes,"Nhe Baid. "The Continental prison-camp." "And Just over this rise there 1 can see an old court-house, and the Virginia Vir-ginia Assembly boiling under the golden tongue-lashing of lean raw-boned raw-boned Patrick Henry. I see a messenger messen-ger gallop up and see the members scramble to their saddles and then. Tarleton and his r d-coats streaming up, too iate." "Well," commented the doctor deliberately, delib-erately, "all I have to say is, don't materialize too much to Mrs. Poly Gifford vhen you meet her. She'll have you lecturing to the Ladies' Church Guild before you know it." "I hope you ride, Mr. Valiant?" the latter asked genially. "I'm fond of it,' said Valiant, "but 1 have no horse as yet." "1 was thinking," pursued the major, ma-jor, "of the coming tournament." "Tournament?" The doctor cut in. "A ridiculous cock-a-doodle-do which gives the young bucks a chance to rig out in silly toggery tog-gery and prance their colts before a lot of petticoats!" "It's an annual affair," explained the major; "a kind of spectacle. For many years, by the way, it has been neia on a part or tms estate perhaps you will have no objection to its use this season? and at night there is a dance at the Country Club. By the way, you must let me introduce you there tomorrow. I've taken the liberty already of putting your name up." ' "Good lord!" growled the doctor, aside. "He counts himself young! If I'd reached your age, Bristow " "You have," said the major, nettled. "Four years ago! As I was saying, Mr. Valiant, they ride for a prize. It's a very ancient thing I've seen references refer-ences to it in a colonial manuscript in the Byrd Library at Westover. No doubt it's come down directly from the old jousts." "You don't mean to say," cried his hearer in genuine astonishment, "that Virginia has a lineal descendant of the tourney?" The major nodded. "Yes. Certain sections of Kentucky used to have it, too, ,but it has died out there. It exists now only in this state. It's a curious thing that the old knightly meetings of the middle ages should survive today only on American soil and in a corner of Virginia." Doctor Soutball, meanwhile, had set his gaze on the litter of pamph'.ets. He turped with an appreciative eye. "You're beginning in earnest. The The Other Got Up and Stood Before the Mantel-Piece in a Napoleonic i.. t Attitude. Agricultural Department And the Congressional frank." "I'm afraid I'm a sad sketch as a scientist." laughed . Valiant. "My point of view has to be a somewhat practical one. I must be self-supporting;. Damory Court is a big estate. It has grain lands and forest as well. If my ancestors lived from it. 1 can. It's not only that," he went on more slowly, "I want to make the most of the piace for its own sake, too. Not only of its possibilities for earning, but of its natural beauties. I lack the resources I once had, but i can give it thought and work, and if they can bring Damory Court back to anything even remotely resembling what it onde was. I'll not spare either." The major smote his knee and even ,lhe doctor's fate showed a grim. If trar tlust approval "I bui-svo vo'U do it!" exclaimed the former. "And let me say, Bah, that the neighborhood neighbor-hood is not unaware of the splendid generosity which is responsible for the present lack of which you speak." Valiant put out his hand with a little gesture of deprecation, but the other disregarded it. "Confound it, sah. it was to be expected of a Valiant. Va-liant. Your ancestors wrote their names in capital letters over this country. They were an up and down lot. but good or bad (and, as Southall says, I reckon" he nodded toward the great portrait above the couch "they weren't all little woolly lambs) they did big things in a highway." Valiant leaned forward eagerly, a Question on his lips. But at the moment mo-ment a diversion occurred in the shape of Uncle Jefferson, who re-entered, bearing a tray on which set sundry sun-dry jugs and clinking glasses, glowing glow-ing with white and green and gold. "You old humbug," said the doctor, "don't you know the major's that poisoned poi-soned with mint-juleps already that he can't get up before eight in the morning?" morn-ing?" "Well, suh," tittered Uncle Jefferson, Jeffer-son, "Ah done foun' er mint-baid down below de kitchens dis mawnin'. Yo'-all Yo'-all gemmun' 'bout de bigges' expuhts in dis yeah county, en Ah reck'n Mars' Valiant sho' 'sist on yo' sam-plin' sam-plin' et." "Sah," said the major feelingly, turning to his host, "I'm proud to drink your health in the typical beverage bev-erage of Virginia!" He touched glasses with Valiant and glared at the doctor, who was sipping his own thoughtfully. "Poems have been written writ-ten on the julep, sah." "They make good epitaphs, too," observed ob-served the doctor. "I noticed your glass isn't going begging,"' the major retorted. "Unc' Jefferson, that's as good mint as grew in the gyarden of Eden. See that those lazy niggers of yours don't grub the patch out by mistake." "Yas, sah," said Uncle Jefferson, as he retired with the tray. "Ah gwine-ter gwine-ter put er fence eroun' dat ar baid 'fo' sundown." The question that had sprung to Valiant's lips now found utterance. "I saw you look at the portrait there." he said to the major. "Which of my ancestors is it?" The other got up and stood before the mantel-piece in a Napoleonic attitude. atti-tude. "That," he said, fixing his eyeglasses, eye-glasses, "is your great-grandfather, Devil-John Valiant." "Devil-John!" echoed his host. "Yes, I've heard the name." The doctor guffawed. "He earned it, I reckon. 1 never realized what a sinister expression that missing optic gives the old ruffian. There wa,s a skirmish during the war on the hillside hill-side yonder and a bullet cut it out. When we were boys we used to call him 'Old One-Eye.' " "It interests me enormously," John Valiant spoke explosively. "The stories of Devil-John would fill a mighty big book," said the major. "By all accounts he ought to have lived in the middle ages." Crossing the library, he looked into the dining-room. dining-room. "I thought I remembered. The portrait over the console there is his wife, your great-grandmother. They say he bet that when he brought his bride home, she should walk into Damory Da-mory Court between rows of candlesticks candle-sticks worth twenty-thousand dollars. He made the wager good, top, for when she came up those steps out there, there was a row of ten candles burning on either side of the doorway, each held by a young slave worth a thousand dollars in the market. "Some say he grew jealous of his wife's beauty. There were any number num-ber of stories told of his cruelties to her that aren't worth repeating. She died early poor lady and your grandfather was the only isaue. Devil-John Devil-John himself lived to be past seventy, and at that age, when most men were stacking their sins and groaning with the gout, he was dicing and fox-hunting with the youngest of them. He always swore he would die with his boots on, and they say when the doctor doc-tor told him he had only a few hours leeway, he made his slaves dress him completely and prop him on his horse. They galloped out so, a negro on either side of him. It was a stormy night, black as the Earl of Hell's riding-boots, with wind and lightning, and he rode cursing at both. There's an old black-gum tree a mile from here that they still call Devil-John': tree. They were just passing under it when the lightning struck it. Lightning Light-ning has no effect on the black-gum, you know. The bolt glanced from the tree and struck him between the two slaves without harming either of them. It killed his horse, too. That's the story. To be sure at this date nobody can separate fact from fiction. fic-tion. Possibly he wasn't so much worse than the rest o' his neighbors not excepting the parsons. 'Other times, other manners.' " "They weren't any worse than the present generation," said the doctor malevolently. "Your four bottle men then knew only claret: now they punish pun-ish whiskey-straight." The major buried his nose In his julep for a long moment before he looked at the doctor blandly. "I agree with you, Bristow." he said: "but it's the first time I ever heard you admit that much good of your ancestors." "Good!" said the doctor belligerently. belligerent-ly. "Me? I don't! I said peopla now were no better. As for the men of that time, they were a cheap swaggering swagger-ing lot of bullies and swash-bucklers. When I read history I'm ashamed to be descended from them." "I desire to inform you, sah," said the major, stung, "that I too am a dj-scendant dj-scendant of those bullies and swasu-bucklers, swasu-bucklers, as you call them. And I wish from my heart I thought we, nowadays, now-adays, could hold a tallow-dip to them." "You refer, no doubt," said the lector lec-tor with sarcasm, "to cur friend Devil-John Devil-John and his ideal treatment of his wife!" "No, sah," replied the major warmly. warm-ly. "I'm not referring to Devil-John. There were exceptions, no doubt, but for the most part they treated their women folk as I believe their Maker made them to be treated! The man What He Had Drawn From the Shelf Was the Morocco Case That Held the Rusted Dueling-Pistol! who failed in his courtesy there, sah, was called to account for it. He was uueuiy a.pt Lu lma ntmseti stanamg in the cool dawn at the butt-end of a" He broke off and coughed. There was an awkward pause in which he set down his glass noisily and rose and stood before the open bookcase. "I envy you this, sah," he said with somewhat of haste. "A fine old collection. col-lection. Bless my soul, what a curious volume!" As he spoke, his hand jerked out a heavy-looking leather-back. Valiant, who had risen and stood beside him, saw Instantly that what he had drawn from the shelf was the morocco case that held the rusted dueling-pistol! In the major's hands the broken box opened. A sudden startled look darted across his leonine face. With smothered smoth-ered exclamation he thrust it back between the books and closed the glass door. Valiant had paled. His previous finding of the 'weapon had escaped his mind. Now he read, as clearly as if it had been printed in black-letter across the sunny wall, the significance of the major's confusion. That weapon weap-on had been in his father's hand when he faced his opponent in that fatal duel! It flashed across his mind as the doctor lunged for his hat and stick and got to his feet. , "Come, Bristow," said the latter Irritably. Irri-tably. "Your feet will grow fast to the floor presently. We mustn't talk a new neighbor to death. I've got to see a patient at six." CHAPTER XVII. John Valiant Asks a Question. Valiant went with them to the outer door. A painful thought was flooding his mind. It hampered his speech and it was' only by a violent effort that he found voice: "One moment! There is a question I would like to ask." Both gentlemen had turned upon the steps and as they faced him he thought a swift glance ..assed between them. They waited courteously, the doctor with his habitual frown, the major's hand fumbling for the black ribbon on his waistcoat. "Since I came here, I have heard" his tone was uneven "of a duel in which mj- father was a principal. There was such a meeting?" "There was." said the doctor after the slightest pause of surprise. "Had you known nothing of it?" "Absolutely nothing." The major cleared his throat. "It was something he might naturally not have made a record of," he said, "The two had been friends, and it it was a fatal encounter for the other. The doctor and I were your father's seconds." sec-onds." There was a moment's silence before be-fore Valiant spoke again. When he did his voice was steady, though drops had sprung to his forehead. "Was there any circumstance in that meeting meet-ing that might be construed as reflecting re-flecting on his horor?" "Good God, no!" said the major explosively. ex-plosively. "On his bearing as a gentleman?" There was a hiatus this time In which he could hear his heart beat. I In that single exclamation the major seemed to have exhausted his vocabulary. vocabu-lary. He was looking at the ground. It was the doctor who spoke at last, in a silence that to the man in the doorway weighed like a hundred atmospheres. at-mospheres. "No!" he said bluntly. "Certainly not. What put that into your head?" vVhen he was alone in the library Valiant opened the glass door and took from the shelf the morocco case. The old shiver of repugnance ran over him at the very touch of the leather. In the farthest corner was a low commode. com-mode. He set the case on this and moved the big tapestry screen across the angle, hiding it from view. .In the great hall at Damory Court the candles in their brass wall-sconces blinked back from the polished parquetry par-quetry and the shining fire-dogs, filling fill-ing the ratheT solemn gloom with an air of warmth and creature-comfort. Leaning against the newel-post. Valiant Va-liant gazed about him. How different it all looked from the night of his coming! He began to' walk up and down the floor, teasing pricks of restlessness urging him. He opened the door and passed into the unllghted dining-room. On the sideboard' set a silver loving-cup loving-cup that had arrived the day before in a huge box with his books and knick-knacks. He had won it at polo. He lifted it, fingering its carved handles. han-dles. He remembered that when that particular score had been made, Katharine Kath-arine Fargo had sat in one of the drags tt the side-line. But the memory evoked no thrill. Instead, the thought of her palely-cold, passionless beauty called up another mobile thoroughbred face instinct with quick flashings of mirth and hauteur. Again he felt the fierce clutch of small fingers, as they fought with his in that struggle for his life. Each line of that face stood before him the arching arch-ing brows, the cameo-delicacy of profile, pro-file, the magnolia skin and hair like a brown-gold cloud across the sun. He stepped down to the graveled drive and followed it to the gate, then, bareheaded,, took the Red Road. Along this highway he had rattled in Uncle Jefferson's crazy hack with her red rose in his hand. The musky scent of the pressed leaves In the book in his pocket seemed to be all about him. The odor of living roses, In fact, was In the air. It came on the scarce-felt scarce-felt breeze, a heavy calling perfume. He walked on, keeping the road by the misty infiltrating shimmer of the stars, with a sensation rather of gliding glid-ing than of walking. It occurred to him that if, as scientists say, colors emit sound-tones, scents also should possess a music of their own: the honeysuckle fragrance, maybe soft mellow fluting as of diminutive wind-instruments; wind-instruments; the far-faiiit sickly odor of lilies the upper register of faery violins; this spicy breath of roses-blending, roses-blending, throbbing chords like elfln echoes of an Italian harp. The fancy pleased him; he could imagine the perfume no t in the air carried with it an under-music, like a ghostly harping. harp-ing. It came to him at the same instant that this was no mere fancy. Somewhere Some-where in the languorous night a harp was being played. He paused and listened lis-tened intently, then went on toward the sound. The rose scent had grown stronger; it was almost in that heavy air, as if he were breasting an etherial sea of attar. He felt as if he were nath of rose-leaveu radinwhich the" increasing melodl rwdlrimsonfto him, cal.ing. caU- '"He stopped stock-still. He .been VL The latter opened on a porch making it stand out a mass of woven rnhiea set in emerald. He drew a long sigh of more than deUght for framed in the doorway he saw a figure in misty white, leamng to the gilded upright of a harp. He knew at once that it was Shirley Holding his breath, became closer, his feet muffled in the thick grass. He stood in the dense ob scun ty one hand gripping the guar ed limb of a catalpa, his eyes following the shapely arms from wrist to shoulder, the fingers straying across the strings, the bending cheek caressing the carved wood. She was playing the melody of Shelley's "Indian Serencde--touching the chords softly and ten-derly ten-derly and his lips moved, molding themselves soundlessly to the words. The serenade died in a Bingle long note. As if in answer to it there rose a flood of bird-music from beyond the al.borjets of song that swelled and rippled to a soaring melody. She heard it, too, for the gracile fingers fell from the strings. She listened a moment, with head held to one side, then sprang up and came through the door and down the steps. He hesitated a moment, then a single sin-gle stride took him from the shadow. CHAPTER XVIII. Beyond the Box-Hedge. As he greeted her, his gaze plunged deep into hers. She had recoiled a step, startled, to recognize him almost al-most instantly. He noted the shrinking shrink-ing and thought it due to a stabbing memory of that forest-horror. His first words were prosaic enough: "Tin an unconscionable trespasser," he said. "It must seem awfully prow-ly, prow-ly, but I didn't realize I was on private pri-vate property till I passed the hedge there."- As her hand lay in his. a strange fancy stirred In him: in that wood-meeting wood-meeting she had seemed something witch-like, the wilful spirit of the passionate pas-sionate spring herself, mixed of her aerial essences and jungle wildernesses; wilder-nesses; in this scented Jim-lit close she was grave-eyed, subdued, a paler pensive pen-sive woman of under ..alf-guessed sadnesses sad-nesses and haunting moods. With her answer, however, this gravity seemed to slip from her like a garment She laughed lightly. "I love to prowl myself. I think sometimes I like the night better than the day. I believe in one of my Incarnations In-carnations I must have been a panther." pan-ther." They both laughed. 'I'm growing superstitious about flowers," he said. "You know a rose figured in our first meeting. And in our last" She shrank momentarily. "The caps jessamines! I shall always think o that when I see them!" "Ah, forgive me!" he begged "But when I remember what vou did for n?J ?h'IkDow! But for you. I must have died. "But for me you wouldn't have been bitten. But don't let's talk of it " fane shivered suddenly. (TO BE'coXTlxcfrcD.) |