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Show ill "i ! 7SER1AL V I STORY J THE GIRL pH from Hn HIS TOWN, By MARIE VAN VORST Illuitrations by M. G. KETTNER jkja (Copyright, lylO, by The Bobbs-MerrUl CoJ 12 SYNOPSIS. Dan Blair, the 22-year-old son of the fifty-million-dollar copper king of Blair-town, Blair-town, Mont., is a guest 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 young man. The youth has an ideal girl in his mind. He meets Lily. Duchess of Breakwater, a beautiful widow, who is attracted by his immense fortune and takes a liking 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 theater where one Letty Lane is the star. Dan 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 Poniotowsky 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 but 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. CHAPTER XI. Continued. She did not appear to hear him. Indeed In-deed she was not looking at him, and Dan saw Prince Poniotowsky making his way toward their table across the room. Letty Lane rose. Dan put her cloak about her 'shoulders, and glancing toward to-ward Ruggles and toward the boy as indifferently as she had considered the new-comers, who formed a small group around the brilliant figure of the actress, she nodded good night to both Ruggles and Blair and went up to the Hungarian as though he were her husband, who had come to take her home. However, at the door she sufficiently shook off heY mood to smile slightly at Dan: "I have had 'lots of fun,' and the Scotch broth was great! Thank you both so much." Until they were up In their sitting-room sitting-room her hosts did not exchange a word. Then Ruggles took a book up from the table and sat down with his cigar. "I am going to read a little Dan. Slept all day; feel as wideawake wide-awake as an owl." Dan showed no desire to be communicative, com-municative, however, to Ruggles' disappointment, dis-appointment, but he exclaimed abruptly: abrupt-ly: "I'll be darned, Ruggles, if I can guess what you asked her for!" . "Well, it did turn out to be a pretty pret-ty expensive party for you, Dannie, didn't it?" Ruggles returned humorously. humor-ously. "I'll let you off from any more supper parties." And Dan fumed as he turned his back. "Expensive! There you are again, Ruggles, with your infernal intrusion in-trusion of money into everything I do." When the older man found himself alone, he read a little and then put his hook down to muse. And his meditations med-itations were on the tide of life and the beds it runs over; the living whirlpool whirl-pool as Ruggles himself had seen it coursing through London under fog and mist. It seemed now to surge up in the dark to his very windows, and the flow mysteriously passed under his windows in these silent hours over which the waters go. Out of the sound, as it flowed on, the cries rose, he thought, kindly to his ears: "God bless her God bless Letty Lane!" And with this sound he closed his meditations, thinking of a more peaceful peace-ful stream, the brighter, sweeter waters wa-ters of the boy's nature, translucent and clear. The vision was happier, and with it Ruggles rose and yawned, and shut his book. CHAPTER XII. ( The Green Knight. The Duchess of Breakwater had made Dan promise at Osdene the day he went back to London that he would take her over to her own place, Stalner Court, and with her see the beauty, ruins and traditions of the place. When Dan got up well on in the morning, Ruggles had gone to the bank. Dan's thoughts turned from everything to Letty Lane. With irritation irri-tation he put her out of his mind. There had come up between himself and the girl he had known slightly In his own town two years ago a wall of partition. Every time he saw her Poniotowsky Poni-otowsky was there, condescending, arrogant, ar-rogant, rude and proud. The prince the night before had given the tips of his fingers to Dan, nodded to Ruggles Rug-gles as if the Westerner had been his tailor, and had appropriated Letty Lane, and she had gone away under his shadow. The simplicity of Dan's life, his decent bringing up, his immaculate im-maculate youth, for such it was, his aloofness from the world, made him naive, but he was not dull. He waited not like a- skeptic who would fit every one into his pigeonholes on tne contrary, he waited to find every one as perfect as he knew they must be, and every time he tried to think of Letty Lane, Poniotowsky troubled him horribly and seemed to rise before him, and sardonically look at him through his eye-glass, making the boy's belief in good things ridiculous. He wrote a note to Ruggles, saying that he would be back late and not to wait for him, and set out in his own car for Blankshire, where the duchess duch-ess was to meet him at Stainer Court at noon. On his way out he decided that he had been a fool to discuss Letty Let-ty Lane with the Duchess of Breakwater, Breakwa-ter, and that it had been none of his business to put her duty before her, and that he had Judged her quickly and unfairly. He fell in love with the lovely English country ovrr which his motor took him, and it made him more affectionate toward the English woman. He sat back in his car, looking look-ing over the fine shooting land, the misty golden forests, as through the misty country his motor took Its way. The breath of England was on his cheeks, he breathed in its odors fresh and sweet, the wildness air was cool and fragrant. His cheeks grew red, his eyes shone like stars, and he was content with his youth and his lot. When they stopped at Castelen, the property belonging to Stainer Court, he felt something of proprietorship stir in him, and, at Stainer Arms ordered or-dered a drink, bought petroleum, and then pushed up the avenue under the leafless giant trees, whose roots were older than his father's name or than any state of the Union. And he felt admiration and something like emotion emo-tion as he saw the first towers of Stainer Court finally appear. The duchess waited for him in the room known as the "Green Knight's Room," because of a figure in tapestry tapes-try on the walls. The legend in wool her, and he felt a strong sentiment stir at the sight of her in this old room, alone and waiting for him. The servants left them, the duchess put her hands on the boy's broad shoulders. shoul-ders. Nearly as tall as he. she was a good example of the best-looking English woman, straight and strong, and her eyes were level, and Dan met them with his own. "I am so glad you came," she murmured. mur-mured. "I've been ragging myself every minute since you went away from Osdene." "You have? What for?" "Because I was such a perfect prig. I'll ,do anything you like for Miss Lane. I mean to say, I'll arrange tor a musicale and ask her to sing." The color rushed into Dan's face. How bully of her! What a brick this showed her to be! He said: "You are as sweet as a peach!" The duchess' hands were still on his shoulders. She could feel his rapid breath. "I don't make you think of a box of candy now?" she murmured, and the boy covered her hand with his own. "I don't know what you make me think of it is bully, whatever it is!" If the Spanish tapestry could only have reversed its idea, and if the immaculate im-maculate lady, or even one of the rabbits, rab-bits, could have drawn a sword to protect the Green Knight, it would have been passing well. But the woven work, when it first had been embroidered, was done for ever; it was irrevocable In its mistaken idea, that it is only the woman who needs protection! CHAPTER XIII. The Face of Letty Lane. As Dan went through the halls of the Carlton on his way to his rooms that same evening, the porter por-ter gave him two notes, which Dan went down into the smoking-room to Prince Poniotowsky Making His Way Toward Their Table Across the Room. had been woven in Spain, somewhere about the time when Isabelle was kind, and when in turn a continent loomed up for the world in general out of the mist. The subject of the Green Knight's tapestry was simple and convincing. On a sheer-cut village vil-lage of low ferns, where daisies stood up like trees, a slender lady poised her dark sandaled feet on the pin-like turf. Her figure was all swathed round with a spotless dress of woolly white, softened by age into a golden misty tone, and a pair of friendly and confidential rabbits sat close' to her golden slippers. The lady's face was candid and mild; her eyes were soft, and around her head was wound a fillet of woven threads, mellow in tone, a red, no doubt, originally, but softened to a coral pink by time. This lady in all her grace and virginal sweetness was only half of the woven story. To her right stood a youth in forest green, his sword drawn, and his intention evidently to kill a creature crea-ture which, near to the gentle rabbits, out of the daisied grass lifted its cruel snakelike head. For nearly five hundred hun-dred years the serpent's venom had been poised, and if the serpent should start the Green Knight would strike, too, at the same magic moment. Close to the tapestry a fire had been laid in the broad fireplace, and the duchess had ordered the luncheon table for Dan and herself spread with the cold things England knows how to combine into a delectable feast. The room was full of mediaeval furnishings, fur-nishings, but the Green Knight was the best of all. The Duchess of Breakwater Break-water took him for granted. She had known him all her life, and she had only been struck by his expensive beauty when the offer came to her from the National Museum to buy him, and she wondered how long she could afford to stick to her price. When Dan came in he found her in a short tweed skirt, a mannish blouse, looking boyish and wholly charming, and she mixed him a cocktail unde the Green Knight's very nose and offered of-fered it with the wisdom of the serpent ser-pent itself, and the duchess didn't in the least suggest tie white-robed, milk-white lady. The friends drank their cocktails In good spirits, and Dan presented the lady with the flowers he had brought read. He tore open the note bearing the Hotel Savoy on the envelope, and read: "Dear Boy-: Will you come around tonight to-night and see me about five o'clock? Don't let anything keep you." (Letty Lane had the habit of scratching out phrases to insert others, and there was something scratched out.) "I want to talk to you about something .very important. im-portant. Come sure. L. L." Dan looked at the clock; it was after aft-er nine, and she would be at the Gaiety Gaie-ty going on with her performance. The other note, which he opened more slowly, was from Ruggles, and it began in just the same way as the dancer's had begun: "Dear Boy: I have been suddenly called call-ed back to the United States. As I didn't know how to get at you, I couldn't. I had a caDle that takes me right back. I get the Lusitanla at Liverpool and you can send me a Marconi. Better make the first boat you can and come over. "Joshua Ruggles." Ruggles left no word of advice, and unconscious of this master stroke on the part of the old man, whose heart yearned for him as for his own son, Dan folded the note up and thought no more about Ruggles. When an hour later lie came oat of the Carlton he was prepared for the life of the evening. He stopped at the telephone desk and sent a telegram tele-gram to Ruggles on the Lusitania: "Can't come yet awhile: am engaged to be married to the Duchess of Breakwater." Breakwa-ter." He wrote this out in full and the man at the Marconi "sat up" and smiled as he wrote. With Letty Lane's badly written note in his pocket, and wondering very much at her summons of him, Dan drove to the Gaiety, and at the end of the third act went back of the scenes. There were several people peo-ple in her dressing-room. Higglns was lacing her into a white bodice and Miss Lane, before her glass, was put-ing put-ing the rouge on her lips. (TO BE CONTINUED.) Tactless. "That man is the most tactless person per-son I ever saw," said Maude. "What did he do?" inquired Mamie. "Met a lady in Reno and tried to be agreeable by telling her he hoped her husband was well." |