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Show 7 SERIAL V I STORY J if THE GIRL 1 jph from Hrf HIS TOWN By MARIE VAN VORST Illuitr.lion. by M. C. KETTNER im :rei 1 (Uji) rliUt, lilU, by Tue liobos-MorrlU Co.) SYNOPSIS. Tinn rihilr. the ,!'--year-old son of the flfly-inlllluii-dollar copper king of Rlalr-towri. Rlalr-towri. Mom., Is a guest al Ihe English home or l.ndv Galorey. Dan's father hail been courteous to Lord CSalorey during his vlsli to ! lie United Slates and the courtesy Is noiv being returned to the young roan Tho vouth has an ideal girl In his ml, id. He meela l.llv. Duchess of Hrrakwat.r. n beautiful widow, who Is allrarled by his Immense fortune and takes n llKlne to her. When Dan was a hoy. a girl sang a solo at a church, and he bad never forgotten her. Tho Ga-I'lrevs, Ga-I'lrevs, i.iiy and Dan attend a London I heater where one l.ettv I.ane Is the star. Dan recognizes her as Ihe prlrl from his town, and going behind the scenes Intro-''"" Intro-''"" himself and she remembers him. He learns thai Prince Poniotowsky Is uiltor and escort to Lettv Lord On-lorey On-lorey and o friend named Ruggles deter-nilne deter-nilne to protect the westerner from Lllv "nd other fortune hunters. Young Blair goes to see Lily; be can talk of nothing hut Letty and this enters the Duchess. I he westerner finds l.ettv 111 from hard work, hut she recovers and Ruggles and Dan Invile her to supper. She asks Dan It hulld a home for disappointed theatrical the-atrical people. Dae visits Lllv, for the time forgetting Letty. and Inter announces an-nounces his engagement to the duchess. Letty refuses to sing for an entertain, nteiil given by Lily. Oalnrey tells Dan Hint till Lily cares for Is his money, and II Is disclosed that he and ihe duchess have been mutually in love for years, l etty sings at an aristocratic function. Dan escorting her home. Dan confronts Calorpy and Lily together. Later he Informs In-forms Letty that his engagement with 1 fly Is broken, asks the singer to marry him. and they become engaged. CHAPTER XXIV. Ruggles' Offer. He felt as he waited for her in that flower-filled room, for she had recovered recov-ered from her distaste for flowers, as he glanced at the photographs of women wom-en like herself in costumes more or less frank, more or less vulgar, he felt as though he wanted to knock down the walls and let in a big view nf the west of Montana of the hills. With such a setting he thought he could belter talk with the lady whom he had come to see. Ruggles held an unlighted cigar between be-tween his fingers and goosefiesh rose nil over him. His glasses bothered him. He couldn't get them bright enough, though he polished them half u dozen times on his silk handkerchief. handker-chief. His clothes felt too large. He seemed to have shrunken. He moistened moist-ened his lips, cleared his throat, tried lo remember what kind of fellow he had been at Dan's age. At Dan's age he was selling a suspender patent on the road, supporting his mother and ' his sisters hard work and few temptations; temp-tations; he was too tired and too poor. i Miss Lane kept him waiting ten minutes, and they were hours to her suest. He was afraid every minute that Dan would come in. The thoughts he had gathered together, the plan of iction, disarranged itself in his mind every time he thought of the utress. He couldn't forget his vision of her on the stage or at the Carlton, where she had sat opposite them and bewitched be-witched them both. When she came into the sitting-room at length, he started so violently that he knocked over a vase of flowers, the water trickling all over the table down on to the floor. She had dazzled him before the footlights, foot-lights, charmed hira at dinner, and it was singular to think that he knew how this dignified, quiet creature looked in ballet clothes and in a dinner dress, whose frankness had made him catch his breath. It was a third woman who stood before Ruggles now. He had to take her into consideration. She had expected him, saw him by appointment. She had not climbed to her starry position without having acquired a knowledge of men, and it was the secret of her success. She showed it in the dress in which she received her visitor. She wore a short walking skirt of heavy serge, a simple shirtwaist belted around, a sailor hat on her beautiful little head. She was unjeweled and unpainted, very pale and very sweet It if had not been for the marks of fatigue under her eyes, she would not have looked more than eighteen. On her left hand a single diarr.o::d,' clear as water, caught the refracted light. "How-de-do? Glad you are back again." She gave him a big chair and sat down before him smiling. Leaning her elbows on her knees, she sank her face upon her bands and looked at him, not coquettishly in the least, but as a child might have looked. From her small feet to her golden head she was utterly charming. Ruggles made himself think of Dan. Miss Lane spoke slowly, nodding toward him, in her languid voice: "It's no use. Mr Ruggles. no use." Holding her face between her hands, her eyes gray as winter's seas and as profound, she looked at him intently; then, in a flash, she changed her position po-sition ir.d ins.'antly transformed her characWv He saw that she was a woman, not an eighteen-year-old girl, but a woman, clever, poised, witty, understanding, un-derstanding, and that she might have been twenty years older than the boy. "I'm sorry you spoke so quick," he said. "I knew," she interrupted, "just what you wanted to say from the start. "I couldn't help it, could I? I knew you would want to come and see me about it. It isn't any use. I know just what you are going to say." "No, ma'am," he returned, "I don't believe you do bright as you are." Ruggles gazed thoughtfully at the cold end of his unlighted cigar. It was a comfort to him to hold it and to look at it, although not for anything any-thing in the world would he have asked to light it. "Dan's father and me were chums. We went through pretty much together, to-gether, and I know how he felt on most points. He was a man of few words, but I know he counted on me to stand by the boy." Ruggles was so chivalrous that his role at present cost him keen discomfort. discom-fort. "A lady like you," he said gently "knows a great deal more about how things are done than either Dan or me. We ain't tenderfeet in the west, not by a long shot, but we see so few of a certain kind of picture shows that when they do come round they're likely to make us lose our minds! You know, yourself, a circus in a town fifty miles from a railroad drives the people crazy. Now, Dan's a little like the boy with his eyes on the hole In the tent. He would commit murder to get inside and see that show." He nodded and smiled to her as though he expected her to follow his crude simile. "Now, I have seen you a lot of times." And she couldn't help reminding re-minding him, "Not of your own accord, ac-cord, Mr. Ruggles." "Well, I don't know," he slowly admitted; ad-mitted; "I always felt I had my money's mon-ey's worth, and the night you ate with us at the Carlton I understood pretty well how the boy with his eyes at the tent hole would feel." But he tapped his broad chest with the hand that held the cigar between the first and second fingers. "I know just what kind of a heart you've got, for I waited at the stage door and I know you don't get all the applause inside the Gaiety theater." "Goodness," she murmured, "they make an awful fuss about nothing." "Now," he continued, leaning forward for-ward a trifle toward her languid, half-interested half-interested figure, "I just want you to think of him as a little boy. He's only twenty-two. He knows nothing of the world. The money you give to the poor doesn't come so hard perhaps as this will. It's a big sacrifice, but I want you to let the boy go." She smiled slightly, found her handkerchief, hand-kerchief, which was tucked up the cuff of her blouse, pressed the little bit of linen to her lips as though to steady them, then she asked abruptly: "What has he said to you?" "Lord!" Ruggles groaned. "Said to me! My dear young lady, he is much too rude to speak. Dan sort of breathes and snorts around like a lunatic. He was dangling around that duchess when I was here before, but she didn't scare me any." And Letty Lane, now smiling at him, relieved by his break from a more intense tone, asked: "Now, you are scared?" "Well," Ruggles drawled, "I was pretty sure that woman didn't care anything for the boy. Are you her kind?" It was the best stroke he had made. She almost sprang up from her chair. "Heavens," she exclaimed, "I guess I'm not!" Her face flushed. "I had rather see a son of mine dead than married to a woman like that." he said. "Why, Mr. Ruggles," she exclaimed passionately, addressing him with in terest for the first time, "what do you know about me? What? What? You have seen me dance and heard me sing." And he interrupted her. "Ten times, and you are a bully dancer and a bully singer, but you do other things than dance and sing. There is not a man living that would want to have his mother dress that way." J She controlled a smile. "Never mind that. People's opinions are very different about that sort of thing. You have seen me at dinner with your boy, as you call him, and you can't Bay that I did anything but ask him to help the poor. I haven't led Dan on. I have tried to show him just what you are making me go through now." If she acted well and danced well, It was hard for her to talk. She was evidently under strong emotion and it needed her control not to burst into tears and lose her chance. "Of course, I know the things you have heard. Of oourse, I know what is said about me" and she stopped. Ruggles didn't preBs her any further; fur-ther; he didn't ask her If the things were true. Looking at her as he did, watching her as he did, there was la him a feeling bo new, so troubling that he found himself more anxious to protect her than to bring her to justice. jus-tice. "There are worse, far worse women than I am, Mr. Ruggles. I will never do Dan any harm." Here her visitor leaned forward and put one of his big hands lightly over one of hers, patted it a moment, and said: "I want you to do a great deal better bet-ter than that." She had picked up a photograph oft MifcaiTMliI JMTlJfilMl"iai IMiliriMMTlTilWVai IWH Will II1MM ap "Dan's Father and Me Were Chums." the table, a pretty picture of herself. In "Mandalay," and turned It I nervously nerv-ously between her fingers as she said with Irritation: "I haven't been fn the theatrical world not to guess at this 'Worried Father' act, Mr. Ruggles. I told you I knew just what you were going to say." "Wrong!" he repeated. "The business busi-ness is old enough perhaps, lots of good jobs are old, but this is a little different." He took the turning picture and laid it on the table, and quietly possessed pos-sessed himself of the small cold hands. Blair's solitaire shone up to him. Ruggles looked Into Letty Lane's eyes. "He Is only twenty-two; It ain't fair, it ain't fair. He could count the times he has been on a, lark, I guess. He hasn't even been to an eastern college. col-lege. He is no fool, but he's darned simple." She smiled faintly. The man's face, near her own, was very simple Indeed. "You have seen so much," he urged, "so many fellows. You have been such a queen, I dare say you could get any man you wanted." He repeated. "Most any man." "I have never seen any one like Dan." "Just so: he ain't your kind. That is what I am trying to tell you." She withdrew her hand from his violently. vio-lently. "There you are wrong. He Is my kind. He is what I like, and he is what I want to be like." A wave of red dyed her face, and, in a tone more passionate than she had ever used to her lover, she said to Ruggles: "I love him I love him!" Her words sent something like a sword through the older man's heart He said gently: "Don't say it. He don't know what love means yet." (TO BE CONTINUED.) |