OCR Text |
Show STORY j p "g J THE GIRL 1 fpH from Hrf HIS TOWN By MARIE VAN VORST Mtutrationi by M. G. KETTNER (Copyright, 1U10. bj The Bubbs-MerrUl Co.) 14 SYNOPSIS. Dan Blair, the 22-year-old son of the fifty-mlllion-dollar copper king of Blair-town. Blair-town. Mont., is a guest at the English home ot Lpdy Galorey. Dan's father had been courteous to Lord Galorey during hi 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 lo supper. She asks Dan to build a home for disappointed theatrical the-atrical people. Dan visits Lily, for the time forgetting Letty. CHAPTER XIII. Continued. She was taking him home then! "Well, you've got to come in and have some supper with me in that case," he cried eagerly, and she told him that she had taken him home because be-cause Bhe knew that Mr. Ruggles would approve. "Not much you won't," he said, and put his hand on the speaking tube, but she stopped him. "Don't give any orders in my motor, Mr. Blair. ,You sit still where you are." "Do you think that I am such a simple sim-ple youth that I " Letty Lane with a gesture of supreme su-preme ennui said to him impatiently: "Oh, I Just think I am pretty nearly tired to death; don't, bother me. I want my own way." Her voice and her gesture, her beauty beau-ty and her indifference, her sort of vague lack of Interest in him and in everything, put the boy, full of life as he was, out of ease, but he ventured, after a second: "Won't you please tell me what you wanted me to do this afternoon?" "Why, I was hard up, that's all. I have used all my salary for two months and I couldn't pay my bill at the Savoy. "Lord!" he said fervently, "why didn't you " "I did. Like a fool I sent for you the first thing, but I was awfully glad when five o'clock came you didn't turn up. Please don't bother or speak of it again." And burning with curiosity as to what part Poniotowsky played in her life, Dan sat quiet, not venturing to put to her any more questions. She seemed so tired and so overcome by her own thoughts. When they had turned down toward the hotel, however, how-ever, he decided that he must in honor tell her his news. "Got some news to tell you," he exclaimed ex-claimed abruptly. "Want you to congratulate con-gratulate me. I'm engaged to be married mar-ried to the Duchess of Breakwater. She happens to be a great admirer of your voice." The actress turned sharply to him and in the dark he could see her little, lit-tle, white face. The covering over her head fell back and she exclaimed: "Heavens!" and impulsively put her hands out over his. "Do you really mean what you say?" "Yes." He nodded surprlsedly. "What do you look like that for?" Letty Lane arranged her scarf and then drew back from him and laughed. laugh-ed. ' "Oh, dear, dear, dear," she exclaimed, exclaim-ed, "and I . . . and I have been . . ." She looked up , at him swiftly as though she fancied she might detect some new quality in him which she had not observed before, but she saw only his clear, kind eyes, his charming smile and his beautiful, young ignorance, ignor-ance, and said softly to him: "No use to cry, little boy, if it's true! But that woman isn't half good enough for you not half, and I guess you think It funny enough to hear me say so! What does the other boy from Montana say?" "Don't know," Dan answered indifferently. indif-ferently. "Marconted him; didn't tell him about it before he left. You see he doesn't understand England doesn't like it." A little dazed by the way each of the two women took the mention of the other, he asked timidly: "You don't like the Duchess of Breakwater, then?" And she laughed again. "Goodness gracious, I don't know her; actresses don't sit around with duchesses." Then abruptly, her beautiful beau-tiful eyes, under their curled dark lashes, full on him, she asked: "Do you like her?" "You bet!" he said ardently. "Of ; course I do. I am crazy about her." Yet he realized, as he replied, that he didn't have any inclination to begin to talk about his fiancee. They had reached the Carlton and the door of Letty Lane's motor was held open. "Better get out," he urged, "and have something to eat." And she, leaning a little way toward him, laughed. "Crazy! Your engagement will be broken off tomorrow." And she further fur-ther said: "If I really thought it would, why I'd come like a shot." As she leaned forward, her cloak slipping from her neck, revealing her throat above the dark collar of the simple dress she wore, he looked in her dove-gray eyes, and murmured: "Oh, say, do come along and risk it. I'm game, all right." She hesitated, then bade him good night languidly, slipping back into her old attitude of indifference. "I am going home to rest. Good night. I don't think the duchess would let you go, no matter what you did!" Dan, standing there at her motor door, this beautiful, well-known woman wo-man bantering him, leaning toward him, was conscious of her alone, all snowy and small and divlna in her enveloping en-veloping scarf, lost in th corner of her big car. "I hate to have you go back alone to the Savoy. I really do. Please let me " But she shook her head. "Tell the man the Savoy," and a-s Dan. carrying carry-ing out her instructions, closed the door, he said: "I don't like that empty vase in there. Would you be very good and put some flowers in it if they came?" She wouldn't promise, and he went on: "Will you put only my flowers in that vase always hereafter?" Then, "Why, of course not, goose," she said shortly. "Will you please let me close the door and go home?" Dan walked into the Carlton when her bright motor had slipped away, his evening coat long and black flying "Now Please Do Tell Me About the Poor People." Its wings behind him, his hat on the back of his blond head, light of foot and step, a gay young figure among the late lingering crowd. He went to his apartments and missed Ruggles in the lonely quiet of the sitting-room, but as the night before be-fore Ruggles had done, Dan in his bed-room window stood looking out at the mist and fog through which before be-fore his eyes the things he had lately seen passed and repassed, specterlike, specter-like, winglike, across the gloom. Finally, Fin-ally, in spite of the fact that he-was an engaged man with the responsibilities responsibili-ties of marriage before him, he could think of but one thing to take with him when he finally turned to sleep. The face of the woman he was engaged en-gaged to marry eluded him, but the face under the white hood of Letty Lane was in his dreams, and in his troubled visions he saw her shining, dovelike eyes. CHAPTER XIV. From India's Coral Strands. Mrs. Higgins, in Miss Lane's apartment apart-ment at the Savoy, was adjusting the photographs and arranging the flowers when she was surprised by a caller, who came up without the formality of sending his name. "Do you think," Blair asked her, "that Miss Lane would see me half a minute? I called yesterday, and the day before, as soon as I saw that there was a substitute singing in Mandalay. Tell her I'm as full of news as a charity char-ity report, please, and I rather guess that will fetch her." Something fetched her. for in a few minutes she came languidly in, and by the way she smiled at her visitor it might be thought Dan Blair's nams alone had brought her in. The actress had been ill for a fortnight with what the press notices said was influenza. She wore a teagown, long and white as foam, her hair rolled in a soft knot, and her face was pale as death. Frail and small as she was, she was more ethereal than when in perfect health. "Don't stand a minute." And by the "hand she gave him Dan led her over to the lounge where the pillows were piled and a fur-lined silk cover thrown across the sofa. "Don't give me that heavy rug, there's that little white shawl." She pointed to it, and Dan, as he gave it to her, recognized the shawl in which she wrapped herself when she crossed the icy wings. "It's in those infernal side scenes you get colds." He sat down by her. She began to cough violently and he asked, troubled, trou-bled, "Who's taking care of you, anyway?" any-way?" "Higgins and a couple of doctors." "That's all?" "Yes. Why, who should be?" Dan didn't follow up his jealous suspicion, sus-picion, but asked in a tone almost paternal and softly confidential: "How are your finances getting on?" Her lips curved in a friendly smile. But she made a dismissing gesture with her frail little hand. "Oh, I'm all right; Higgins told me you had some news about my poor people." The fact that she did not take up the financial subject made him unpleasantly un-pleasantly sure that her wants had been supplied. "Got a whole bunch of news," Dan replied cheerfully. "I went to see th old man and the girl in their diggings. Gosh, you couldn't believe such things were true." She drew her fine brows together. "I guess there are a good many things that would surprise you. But you don't need to tell me about hard times. That's the way I am. I'll do anything, give anything, so long as I don't have to hear hard stories." She turned ta him confidentially. "Perhaps it's act ing in false sceneB on the stage; perhaps per-haps it's because I'm lazy and selfish, but I can't bear to hear about tales ol woe." What she said somewhat disturbed his idea of her big-hearted charity. "I don't believe you're lazy or selfish," self-ish," he said sincerely, "but I've got an idea that not many people really know you." This amused her. Looking at him quizzically, she laughed. "I expect you think you do." Dan answered: "Well, I guess the people that see you when you are a kid, who come from your own part of the country, have a sort of friend- ' ship." And the girl on the sofa from the depths of her shawl put out a thin little hand to him and said in a voice aB lovely in tone as when she sang In Mandalay : "Well, I guess that's right! I guess that's about true." After the tenth of a second, in which she thought best to take her little coUS hand away from those big warm ones, she asked: "Now please do tell me about the poor people." In this way giving him to understand under-stand how really true his better idea of her had been. (TO BE CONTINUED.) |