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Show 7SERJALf STORY j THE GIRL I Lj from rjJ HIS TOWN By MARIE VAN VORST Illustrations by M. G. KETTNER 1 L j5 1 Upyriht, lalU. by The Hubbs-AlerriU Go.J is 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. Ho 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 forgotton 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 an 3 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 111 from hard work, but she recovers and Ruggles and Dan Invite taer to supper. She asks Dan to build a home for disappointed theatrical the-atrical people. Dan visits Lily. CHAPTER XIII. Continued. "Hello, you," she nodded to Dan. "I am awfully sorry not to have shown up at five. Just got your note. Just got in at the hotel; been out ot town all day." Dan saw that none of the people In the room was familiar to him, and that they were out of place in the pretty brocaded nest. One of them was a Jew, a small man with a glass eye, whose fixed stare rested on Miss Lane. He had kept on his overcoat, and his derby hat hung on the back of his head. "Give Mr. Cohen the box, Higgins," Miss Lane directed, and bending forward, for-ward, brought her small face close to the glass, and her hands trembled as she handled the rouge stick. Mr. Cohen In one hand held a string of pearls that fell through his fat Angers, An-gers, as if eager to escape from them. Higgins obediently placed a small box in his hand. "Take it and get out of here," she ordered Cohen. "Miss Lane has only got five minutes." Cohen turned the stub of his cigar In his mouth unpleasantly without taking tak-ing the trouble to remove it. "I'll take box," he said rapidly, "and when I get good and ready I'll get out of here, but not before." "Now see here," Blair began, but Miss Lane, who had finished her task, motioned him to be quiet. "Please go out, Mr. Blair," she Eald. "Please go out Mr. Cohen is here on business and I really can't see anybody any-body just now." Behind the Jew Higgins looked up at Dan and he understood but he didn't heed her warning; nothing would have induced him to leave Letty Let-ty Lane like this. "I'm not going, though, Miss Lane,", he said frankly. "I've got an appointment appoint-ment with you and I'm going to stay." As he did so the other people In the room took form for him: a blind beggar beg-gar with a stick in his hand, and by his side a small child wrapped in a shawl. With relief Dan saw that Poniotowsky was absent from the party. Cohen opened the box, took its contents con-tents out and held up the jewels. "This," he said, indicating a string of pearls, is all right, Miss Lane, and the ear-drops. The rest Is no good. I'll take or leave them, as you like." She was plainly annoyed and excited, ex-cited, and, as Higgins tried to lace her, moved from her dressing-table to the sofa in a state of agitation. "Take them or leave them, as you like," she said, "but give me the money and go." The Jew took from his wallet a roll of bank notes and counted them. "Six," he began, but she waved him back. "Don't tell me how much it is. I dont' want to know." "Let the other lady count it," the Jew said. "I don't do business that way." Dan, who had laid down his overcoat over-coat and hat on a chair, came quickly forward, his hands in his pockets, and standing in front of the Jew, he said again: "Now" you look here " Letty Lane threw the money down on the dressing-table. "Please," she cried to Dan, "let me have the pleasure pleas-ure of sending this man out of my room. You can, go, Cohen, and go m a hurry, too." The, Jew stuffed the pearls In his pocket' and went by Dan hurriedly, as though he feared the young man ln-I ln-I tended to help him. But Dan stopped ! him: I "Before this deal goes through 1 ' want you to tell me why you are " ! Miss Lane broke in: "My gracious Heavens! Can't I even sell my jew els without being bossed T What business busi-ness Is it of yours, Mr. Blair? Let the man go, and go all or you all of you. Higgins, send them out." The blind man and the child stirred, too, at this outburst. The little girl wore a miserable hat, a wreck of a hat. In which shook a feather like a broken mast. The resl of her garments gar-ments seemed made of the elements of dirt and mud mere flags of distress, dis-tress, and the odor of the poor filled the room: over the perfume and scent and smell of stage properties, this miserable smell of stage properties, this miserable smell held its own. "Come, Daddy," whispered the child timidly, "come along." "Oh, no, not you, not you," Letty Lane said. Job Cohen crawled out with ten thousand pounds' worth of pearls in his pockets, and as soon as the door had closed the actress took up the roll of notes. "Come here," she said to the child. "Now you can take your father to the home I told you of. It is nice and comfortable they will treat his eyes there." "Miss Lane Miss Lane!" called the page boy. "Never mind that," said the actress, "it is a long wait this act. , I don't go on yet." Higgins went to the door and opened open-ed it and stood a moment, then disappeared dis-appeared into the side scenes. Letty Lane ruffled the pile of banknotes bank-notes and without looking drew out two or three bills, putting them into j "Take It and Get Out of Here," She Ordered Cohen. i the child's hands. "Don't you lose them; stuff them down; this will keep you and your father for a couple of years. Take care of it. You are quite rich now. Don't get robbed." The child tremblingly folded the notes and hid them among her rags. The tears of happiness were straggling strag-gling over her face. She said finally, finding no place to stow away her riches. "I expect I'd best put them in daddy's pocket." And Dan came to her aid; taking the notes from her, he folded and put them Inside the clothes of the old beggar. "Miss Lane," said Higgins, who had come in, "it is time you went on." "I'll see your friends out of the theater," Blair offered. And as he did so, for the first time she looked at him, and he saw the fever in her brilliant bril-liant eyes. "Thanks awfully," she accepted. "It is perfectly crazy to give them so much money at once. Will you look after it like a good boy and see something some-thing or other about them?" He thought of her, however, and caught up a great soft shawl from the chair, wrapped it around her tenderly, and she flitted out, Higgins after her, leaving the rest of the money scattered scat-tered on her dressing-table. "Come along," said Blair kindly to the two who stood awaiting his orders with the docility of the poor, the obedience of those who have no right to plan or suggest until told to move on. "Come, I'll see you home." And he didn't leave them until he had taken them in a cab to their destination destina-tion until he had persuaded the girl to let him have the money, look after it for her, come to see her the next day and tell her what to do. Then he went back to the theater and stood up in the rear, for the house was, crowded, to hear Letty sing. It was souvenir night; there were post-cards and little coral caps with feathers as bonbonnieres. They called her out befoie the curtain a dozen times, and each time Dan wanted want-ed to cry "Mercy" for her. He felt as though this little act had established estab-lished a friendship between them; and his hands clenched as he thought of Poniotowsky, and he tried to recall that he was an engaged man. He had an idea that Letty Lane was looking for him through the performance. She finished in a storm ot applause, and flowers were strewn upon her, and Dan found himself, in spite of his resolution, res-olution, going back into the wings. This time two or thnre cards were sent in. One by one he saw the visl-, tors refused, and Dan, without any formality, himself knocked at Letty Lane's small door, which Higgins opened, looked back over her shoulder to give his name to her mistress, and said to Dan confidently, "Wait, sir; just wait a bit." Her lips were affable. af-fable. And in a few moments, to Dan's astonished delight, the actress herself appeared, a big scarf over her head and her body enveloped in her snowy cloak, and he understood with a leap of his heart that she had singled sin-gled him out to take her home. She went before him through tha wings to the stage entrance, which he opened for her, and she passed out before him into the fog and the mist. For the first time Blair followed her through the crowd, which was a big one on this night. On the one side waited the poor, who wished her many blessing, and on the other side her admirers, whose thoughts were quite different. Something of this flashed through Dan's mind and in that moment mo-ment he touched the serious part of life for the first time. In Letty Lane's motor, the small electric light lit over their heads and the flower vase empty, he sat beside the fragrant human creature who London adored, and knew his place would have been envied by many a man. "I took your friends to their place all right," he told her, "and I'm going to see them myself tomorrow. I ad-; vised the girl not to get married for, I her money. Say, this rs awfully nice of you to let me take you home!" j She seemed small in her corner, "You were great tonight," Dan went j on, "simply great! Wasn't the crowq crazy about you, though! How doea it feel to stand there and hear them clap like a thunderstorm and call your i name?" She replied with effort "It was a : nice audience, wasn't It? ' Oh, I don't knows how It feels. It is rather stimu- , lating. How's the other boy?" she asked abruptly, and when Dan had said that Ruggles had left him alone in London, she turned and laughed a little. Dan asked her why she had sent for him today. "I'm mighty sorry I was out of town," he said warmly. "Just "How Does It Feel to Stand There and Hear Them Clap Like a Thunder Thun-der Storm and Call Your Name?" to think you should have wanted me to do something for you and I didn't turn up. You know I would be glad to do anything. What was it? Won't you tell me what it was?" "The Jew did it for me." And Dan exclaimed: "It made me simply sick to see that animal in your room. I would have kicked him out if I hadn't thought that it would make an unpleasant scene for you. We have passed the Savoy." He looked out of the window, and Letty Lane replied: "I told the driver to go to the Carlton Carl-ton first." (TO BE CONTINUED.) |
