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Show mom nACGMffll it ) Aufhor of The Carpe t rromDadaa The Place f Honeymoons, etc. ff SYNOPSIS. 11 Warrington, nn American adventurer, find James. Ills servant, with a caned par-ret, par-ret, the trio known op niul down Hie lr-rawaddy lr-rawaddy as l'urrot & Co.. are bound for Kanjrooii. Klsa Clietwooti. rich American Kirl tourist, sees Wa rrin.u'l on and asks Hie purser to introduce her. lie tells Iter that Warrington has beaten a syndicate and sold his oil claims for jC.20.O0U. Warrinmon puts liainh. the parrot, through his tricks for Klsa and they pass two golden days together on the riyer. In Karlitoon, Warrington War-rington interferes In a row over cards caused by an enemy. Newell CralK. Klsa Is annoyed by Crnl and slabs him vilh a hatpin. Warrington discovers Klsa on the Singapore steamer. I le avoids her. Crais is al)oard and Is warned by Warrington who ceases to avoid Klsa. t'raii; stirs up .vll sossip. Klsa tells Warrington of the hatpin incident and he hunts up t'ralR, on minder bent, lie tiiuls him stretched out drunk on deck and turns the hose on him. At l'enani; Mallow, who drove Warrlnn-ton Warrlnn-ton from his plantation when he learned b's story, comes aboard. Warrington tells Klsa that Mallow and Crals both will tell I ha. he spent money that did not belotlR to him over the snmbllns table to CraiK. rnn asks her not to speak to him nualn. Mallow baits Warrington, who keeps his temper. At Singapore Klsa calls on her father's fa-ther's old friend the American consul general. gen-eral. Mallow calls and relates the steamer steam-er gossip about Klsa. Warrington also (nils and sends a cable to the Andes Construction Con-struction company, offering to restore the ;olcn money if they will lift the ban. CHAPTER XIII Continued. 'And a man may break any one of these laws. I consider it horribly unfair." un-fair." "So it is. But if you wish to live in peace, you must submit." "Peace at that price I have no wish for. This man Hallow lives within the pale of law; the other man is outside out-side of it. Vet, of the two, which would you be quickest to trust?" The consul general laughed. ".Now you are appealing not to my knowledge of the world but to my instinct." "Thanks." "Is there any reason why you sho.njd defend Mr. Warrington, s? he calls himself?" The consul general's wife desperately desperate-ly tried to catch her husband's eye. Hut either he did not se e the glance or he purposely ignored it. "In defending Mr. Warrington I am defending myself. My dear friend." Klsa went on, letting warmth come into her voice once more, "my sympathy sym-pathy went out to that man. He looked so lonely. Did you notice his eyes? Can a man look at you the way he . does and be bad?" "I have seen Mallow dozens of times. I know him to be a scoundrel of sorts; but 1 doubt if bald sunlight could make him blink. Liars have first to overcome the flickering and wavering of the eyes." "He said almost the same thing. Would he say that if he were a liar?" "I haven't accused him of being that. Indeed, he struck me as a truthful truth-ful young man. By the way, what is the name of the firm your father founded?" "The Andes Construction company. Do you think we could find him something some-thing to do there?" eagerly. "He bunds bridges." "1 shouldn't advise that. But we have gone astray. You ought not to see him again." "It is a hateful world!" Elsa appealed ap-pealed to the w ife. "It is, Klsa, dear. But James Is rif-'ht." "You'll g'-t your balance," said the Midrdian. "when you reach home V.'hen's the wedding?" "I'm not sure that I'm going to be married." Elsa twirled the sunshade ft Wfeili "I'm Not Sure That I'm Going to Be Married." again. "Oh. pother with It all! Iiln-ner Iiln-ner at Hgl.t, In the hig dining room." "Yes. Hut the Intnuluet iniiH will be made on the cafe veranda. Thetie people peo-ple out hen: have fcotie mad over cock- j t.nN. Anil look your lient, Klsu. I v. ; . 1 1 1 lie in to !! a real Amerli an y,r i toi:i;'U. I'll Lave Koine rot'.es mint up to you." Klt.a had not the heart In toll him thai . II ihlerem In his dinner hail i ; 1 ! ' t.ly cone from her mind; that evo;i Hie confusion of the colonel no j loiii ' r !ipe,il.tl to In r bitter mallei'. I She l.ii'-w that Hhe m noilJj; to be b'.l .1 and inferable. V, In ii f.he none, the ennui fsa- v ill- said : "I'oor Klill" Her husband looked across the room Interestedly. "Why do you say that?" "I am a woman." "That phrase is the City of Refuge. All women fly to it when confronted by something they do not understand." "Oh, but I do understand. And that's the pity of it." CHAPTER XIV. According to the Rules. Elsa sought the hotel ricksha'.? stand, selected a sturdy coolie, and asked to be run to the botanical gardens gar-dens and back. She wanted to be alone, wanted breathing space, wanted the breeze to cool her hot cheeks. For she was angry at the world, angry at the gentle consul general, above all, angry at herself. To have laid herself open to the charge of indiscretion! To have received a lecture, however kindly kind-ly intended, from the man she loved and respected next to her father! To know that persons were exchanging nods and whispers behind her back! It was a detestable world. It was folly to be honest, to be kind, to be individual, to have likes and dislikes, unless these might be regulated by outsiders. Why should she care what people said? She did not care. What made her furious was the absolute stupidity of their deductions. She had not been indiscreet; she had been merely kindly and human; and if they wanted to twist and misconstrue her actions, let them do so. Once or twice she saw inwardly the will-o'-the-wisp lights of her soul. But resolutely she smothered the sparks. The coolie stopped suddenly. "Go on," she said. But the coolie smiled and wiped his shaven poll. Elsa gazed at the hotel veranda in bewilderment. Slowly she got out of the rickshaw and paid the fare. She had not the slightest recollection recol-lection of having seen the gardens. More than this, it was a quarter to seven. She had been gone exactly an hour. "Perhaps, after all," she thought, "I am hopeless. They may be right; I ought to have a guardian. I am not always accountable for what I do." She dressed leisurely and with calculation. cal-culation. She was determined to convince con-vince everyone that she was a beautiful beau-tiful woman, above suspicion, above reproach. The spirit within her was not. however, In direct accord with this determlnau&n. Malice stirred Into life again; and she wanted to hurt someone, hurt deeply. It was only the tame in spirit who, when injured, submitted sub-mitted without murmur or protest. And Elsa, only dimly aware of it, was mortally hurt. "Elsa," said Martha, "that frown will stay there some day, and never go away." Elsa rubbed It out with her finger. "Martha, do you recall that tiger In the cage at Jaipur? How they teased him until he lost his temper and came smashing against the bars? Well, I sympathize with that brute. He would have been peaceful enough had they let him be. If Mr. Warrington calls to morrow, say that I am indisposed." Martha evinced her satisfaction visibly. The frown returned between Elsa's eyes and remained there until she went downstairs to join the consul general and his wife. She found some very agreeable men and women, and some of her natural gayety returned. At a far table on the veranda she saw Craig and Mallow in earnest conversation. conversa-tion. She nodded pleasantly to the colonel colo-nel as the head boy came to nnnonnee that dinner was served. Anglo Indian society had so many twists and ramifications rami-fications that the situation was not exactly ex-actly new to the old soldier. True, none had confronted him identical to litis. Hut he had not disciplined men :ff these years without acquiring abundant abun-dant self-control. The little veins In his nose turned purple, as Elsa prophesied they would, but there was no other Indication of how distasteful the moment was to him. Ho would surely warn the consul general, who doubtless was Innocent enough. They sat down. The colonel blinked. "Fine passage we had coming down." "Was It?" returned Elsa Innocently. The colonel readied for an olive and bit Into It savagely. He was no fool. She had him at the end of a blind alley, and there he must wait until she was ready to let him go. She could harry him or pretend to Ignore hint, as suited h'T fancy. He was caught. Women, all women, possessed at least one attribute of the cat. It was digging dig-ging In the claw, hanging by It, and boreilly looking about the world to see what was going on. At that moment the colonel recognized the sling of the claw. Elsa turned to her right and en- I griKi-d the French consul iliiicu rsl vely ; indeed, she gradually lieeauie the center cen-ter of Interest; she drew them Intentionally. Inten-tionally. She brought a touch of home In the I'iencli iiiaii. to Die (lermnu, to the Italian, to the Spaniard; nnd the Piillfh ollieial, in whose hands the civil I) I it 1 1 1 1 y.H of the Slrallii nellle-inch nellle-inch I ft rented, wiih charmed to lenrii that Elsa had spent vaiioiiH week-enda 1 at the home of Mh sinter In H.irrey. And when she admitted Uiut she i was the daughter of General Chet-wood, Chet-wood, the man to whom the Indian government had cause to be grateful, upon more than one occasion, for the solidity of his structures, the colonel realized definitely the seriousness of his crucifixion. He sat stiffer and stiffer In his chair, and the veins In his nose grew deeper and deeper in hue. He saw clearly that he would never understand American women. He had committed an outrageous blunder. blun-der. He, instead of dominating, had been dominated by three faultfinding old women; and, without being aware of the fact, had looked at things from their point of view. A most inconceivable inconceiv-able blunder. He would not allow that he was being swayed less by the admission admis-sion of his unpardonable rudeness on board than by the immediate knowledge knowl-edge that Elsa was known to the British Brit-ish ollicial's sister, a titled lady who Btood exceedingly high at court. "Miss Chetwood," he said, lowering his voice for her ears only. Elsa turned, but with the expression that signified that her attention was engaged elsewhere. "Yes?" "I am an old man. I am sixty-two; and most of these sixty-two I have lived roughly; but I am not too old to realize that I have made a fool of myself." my-self." Interest began to fill Elsa's eyes. "It has been said," he went on, keeping keep-ing the key, "that I am a man of courage, cour-age, but I find that I need a good deal of that just now. I have been rude to you, and without warrant, and I offer you my humble apologies." He fumbled fum-bled with his cravat as if it had suddenly sud-denly tightened. "Will you accept?" "Instantly." Elsa understood the quality of courage that had stirred the colonel. But ruthlessly: "I should, life She Nodded Pleasantly to the Colonel. however, like your point of view in regard re-gard ,to what you consider my conduct." con-duct." "Is It necessary?" "I believe It would bo better for my understanding if you made a full confession." con-fession." She did not mean to bo relentless, re-lentless, but her curiosity was too strong not to press her advantage. "Well, then, over here ns elsewhere In the world there are standards by which we judge persons who come under un-der our notice." "Agreed. Individuality Is not generally gen-erally understandable." "liy the mediocre, you might have added. That's the difficulty with Individuality; Indi-viduality; It refuses to be harnessed by mediocrity and mediocrity holds the whip hand, always. I represent the mediocre." "lib, never!" said Elsa animatedly. "Mediocrity Is always without courage." cour-age." "You are wrong. It has the courage of its convictions." "Rather is it not stubbornness, will-fill will-fill refusal to recognize things as they ure?" He countered the question with another. an-other. "Suinmslng we were all individuals, indi-viduals, in the sense you mean? Sup-posing Sup-posing each of us did exactly as he pleased? Can you honestly Imagine a more confusing place than this world would be? The Manchurlan pony Is a wild little beast, an Individual If ever there was one; but man tames him and puts to use his energies. And so It Is with human Individuality. We of the mediocre tame and harnesH and make It useful to the general wclfaro of humanity. And when we encounter the untamable, In order to safeguard ourselvoH, we must turn it hack Into the wilderness, an outlaw. Indeed, I might call Individuality an element, like fire and water and air." "Hut who conquer tire and water and air?" Elsa demanded, believing she had li I tn pocketed. "Mediocrity, through the Individual of this or that being. Humanity In tho bulk Is mediocre. And odd ns It seems. Indivlilualil )' (which Is another wind for genius) believes It leads mediocrity. medi-ocrity. Hut It cannot be tnaile to understand un-derstand that mediocrity ordains tho leadership." "Then you contend that In the hands nf tho sliipld lies tho balance of pnw it?" "Hot us not say fluplil, rather the unliMiigliinllve, the pinelleal mid the I'lnilding. The Hlubhnniesl. person In the world Is one wllh an Idea." "Iln ynit honenlly Insist that you ai'o mediocre?" "No," thought fully. "I nm one of llituai stubborn men wllh lileiui, I merely Insist that I prefer to accept j thu tends ol mediocrity for my own j peace and the peace of others.' Elsa forgot those about her, i--irot her intended humiliation of tho a at her side. He denied that Ho was Js individual, but be was one, as Interesting Inter-esting a one as she had met in a very long time. She, too, had made a blunder. blun-der. Quick to form opinions, swift to judge, she stood guilty with the common com-mon lot, who permit impressions Instead In-stead of evidence to sway them. Here was a man. "We have gone far afield," she said, a tacit admission that she could not refute his dissertations. This knowledge, knowl-edge, however, was not irksome. "Rather have we not come to the bars? Shall we let them down? In the civil and military life on this side of the world there are many situations situa-tions which we perforce must tolerate. But these, mind you, are settled conditions. condi-tions. It Is upon new ones which arise that we pass judgment. I knew nothing noth-ing about you, nothing whatever. So I judged you according to the rules." Elsa leaned upon her elbows, and she smiled a little as she noted that the purple had gone from his nose and that it had resumed its accustomed accus-tomed rubicundity. "I go on. A woman who travels alone, who does not present letters of introduction, who . . ." "Vho attends strictly to her own affairs. af-fairs. Go on." Imperturbably he continued: "Who seeks the acquaintance of men who do not belong, as you Americans say." "Not men; one man," she corrected. "A trifling difference. Well, It arouses a disagreeable word, suspicion. sus-picion. For look, there have been ex-amples. ex-amples. It isn't as If yours were an isolated case. There have been ex- amples, and these we apply to such affairs af-fairs as come under our notice." "And it doesn't matter that you may be totally wrong?" His prompt answer astonished her. i "No, It does not matter In the least, j Simmered down, it may be explained in a word, appearances. And I must say, to the normal mind ..." j "The mediocre mind." I "To the normal and mediocre mind. appearances were against you. Ob- serve, please, that I did not know I was wrong, that you were a remark- able young woman. My deductions were made from what I saw as an out j sider. On the lrrawaddy you made J the acquaintance of a man who came out here a fugitive from justice. After , you made his acquaintance, you sought none other, in fac t, repelled any ad , vances. This alone decided me." "Then you were decided?" To say that this blunt exposition was not bit- , tor to hef taste, that it did not act ! like acid upon her pride, would not be true. She was hurt, but she did not let the hurt befog her sense of jus tlce. From his point of view the colo- ! nel was In no fault. "Let me tell you j how very wrong you were indeed." j "Doubtless," he hastily Interposed. "you enveloped the man in a cloud ol romance." "On the contrary, I Bpoke to him and sought his companionship because he was nothing more nor less than a i ghost." "Ah! Is It possible that you knew ! him In former times?" j "No. Hut he was so like the man at j home; so Identical In features and build to the man I expected to gc borne to marry. . . ." "My dear young lady, you are right Mediocrity Is without imagination stupid, and makes the world a dull place, indeed. What woman in youl place would have acted otherwise? Instead In-stead of one apology I orter a thousand." thou-sand." "I nccept each nnd nil of them. Moro, I believe that you and I could get on capitally. I can very well Imagine the soldier you used to be. I am going to ask you what you know about Mr. Warrington." j "This, that he Is not a fit companion j for a young woman like yourself; that I a detracting rumor follows hard upon' his heels wherever he goes. I learned j something about hint in Rangoon. He 1 Is known to the riff raff lis Parrot .4 Co., and 1 don't know what else. Al of us on shipboard learned his prevl ous history. And not from rcspoctubk quarters, either." j "If I had been elderly and withoti , physical attractions?" Elsa Inquirct Hircastlonlly. "Wo are dealing with human nature, mediocrity, and not with speculation. It Is In tho very nature of things to distrust that which we do not understand. under-stand. You say, old and w ithout physical phys-ical attractions. Heanty Is of all things most drawing. Wo crowd about It, we crown it, we (latter It. The old and unatlractlve we pass by. If I had not seen you here tonight, heard you talk, saw In a kind of rebellious en ch.'intineiit over your knowledge of the world and your distinguished acquaint ance, 1 should have gone to my grave believing that my suspicions were correct. cor-rect. I dare say that I shall make the same mistake again." "Hid yon learn mining cither things what Mr. Warrington had done?" "Yes. A sordid affair. Ordinary peculations that were wasletl over gaming tables." ariini'.lon had told her the (ruih. At least, the story told by otocs coincided with his own. Hut m It lint kept doubt In her mind'.' Why should she mil lie ready to believe what others believed, what (lit. hunt himself had confessed? What was It to her that he looked like Arthur, that he was guilty or Innocent ? "Add his naiiie'.'" She wondered if! the colonel knew (hat also. " Waitiui'.lon la asfiiiued. Ills resl name In Paul Ellison." "Haul Ellison." She repealed l( slow- j y. Her voice did not seem her ov n. The lable. (he lights, the faces, all rv , ficdod and bccaine a blur j (To HIC l.'o.N n.NiiliU) |