OCR Text |
Show 7 SERIALv STORY j THE GIRL I tnH from Hrf HIS TOWN By MARIE VAN VORST lllu.lr.lion. bjr M. C. KETTNER (Copyright, lulu. t7 'i'bu tiobus-Utirrtll Co.) SYNOPSIS. flan ftbilr. the 2?-vefir-ol(1 son of the 1i f t y-nill I ton cloIlH r copper king of Blx'r-town. Blx'r-town. Mont., la a Kueat at the English home of l.ailv Gnlorey. Dan's father had been cnurf-mis to Lord Cialorey during his visit to the United States and the courtesy Ih now belns returned to the younK man. The vouth has an Ideal Klrl In hlH mind He meets Lily. Duchess of breakwater, n heautlful widow, who Is attracted hv his Immense fortune and taken a IlkinK to her. When Dan was a hov. a clrl Hani; a solo at a church, and tie had never forirotlen her. The Oa-loreys Oa-loreys 1 .11 v and Oan attend a London ' theater u her., one Letry Lnne la the star. I in n t ec oL-nlzes her as the clrl from his town, and KoinR behind the scenes Introduces Intro-duces himself and she remembers mm. He learns that Trlnce Ponlotowsky Is suitor an'l escort to Lettv. Lord Oa-loroy Oa-loroy and a friend named RuEKles determine deter-mine to protect the westerner from Lily and other fortune hunters. Young Blair lines to see l.ilv: he can talk of nothing but Lettv and Ibis anKers the Duchess The westerner lino's l.etty 111 from hard work nut she recovers and tuples and Dun Invito her to supper. She asks Dan to build a home for disappointed theatrical the-atrical people. Dan visits Lily, for Inn time foiKt'itlmr Lettv. and later announces an-nounces his ennaKemi-nt to the duchess. Lettv refuses to sins for an entertainment entertain-ment Klven by Lily Galorey tells Dan that all Lllv cares for Is bis money, and It is disclosed that he and the duchess have been mutually in love for years, l.etty sings at an aristocratic function, Dan escort iiiK her home. Dan confronts t;alore and Lily together. Later he Informs In-forms l.etty that his engagement with I lly Is broken, asks the singer to marry him. and they become engaged. Ruggles thinks the westerner should not marry a public singer, and endeavors tel Induce l.etty to give him up. She runs away, fearing she Is not good enough for Dan. i nml Luetics makes the latter believe she has abandoned his love. Finally Dan finds Lclty :n Paris, where he Is per-t-islent in otesslng his suit. CHAPTER XXVII. Continued. She marie him take a table in the corner, where she fat in the shadow ou the sofa, overlooking the brilliant room. Maxim's was no new scene to either of them, no novelty. Ponlotowsky Ponlo-towsky scarcely glanced at the crowd, preferring- to feast his eyes on his companion, whose indifference to him made his abstraction easy. She was his property. He would give her his tit!?; i she' had demanded it from the first. The Hungarian was a little overdressed.- ith his jeweled buttons, his large, 'boutonniere. his faultless olothels'bis single eye-glass through which he stared at Letty Lane, whose delicate beauty was In fine play; her cheeks faintly pink, her starry eyes luimld with a dew whose luster is of the most precious quality. Her unshed un-shed tears had nothing to do with Poniolowsky they were for the boy. '. Her heart sickened, thinking where :he might be; and more than that. It i cried out for him. She wanted him. Oh, she would have been far better tor Dan than anything he could find in this mad city, than anything to which In his despair he could go for consolation. She had 'kept her word, however, to that old man. Mr. Rtig-gles: Rtig-gles: she had got out of the business with a fatal result, as far as the boy was concerned. She thought Dan would drift here probably as most Americans on their wild nights do for a part of the time, and she had come to see. She wore a dress of coral pink, tightly fitting, high to her little chin, and seemed herself like a coral strand from neck to toe, clad in the color she affected, and which had become celebrated cele-brated as the Letty Lane pink. Her feathered hat hid her face, and she was completely shielded as she bent down drawing pictures with her bare finger on the cloth. After a little while she said to Ponlotowsky witn-oul witn-oul glancing at him: "If you stare any longer like that. Frederigo, you'll break your eye-glass. You know how I hate It." Used as he was to her sharpness, he nevertheless flushed and sat back and looked across the room, where, to their right, protected from them as they were from him by the great door, a young man sat alone. Whether or not ie had come to Maxim's Intending to join a congenial party, should he find one. or to choose for a companion some one of the women who. at the entrance of the tall blond boy. stirred and Invited him with their raised lorgnons and their smiles, will not be known. Dan Blair was alone, pale as the pictures Letty Lane had drawn on the cloth, and he, too. feasted his eyes on the Gaiety girl. "By Jove!" said the Hungarian tinder his breath, and she eagerly asked: "What? Whom? Whom do you see?" Turning his back sharply he evaded hor question and she did not pursue the Idea, and as a physical weakness overwhelmed her when Poniotowsky alter a second said: "Come, cherle. lor heaven's sake, let's go" she me-- me-- chanically rose nnd passed out. feveral young men supping together r-ame nvtr eagerly to speak to her And c'jiiin acquaintance with the Gaiety Gai-ety girl, and walked along out tc the motor. There Letty Lane discovered she had dropped her handkerchief, and Sent the prince back for It. As though he had been waiting for the reappearance of Ponlotowsky, Dan Blair stood close to the little table which Letty Lane had left, her handkerchief hand-kerchief In his hand. As Ponlotowsky came up Dan thrust the small trltle of sheer linen into his waistcoat pocket. "I will trouble you for Miss Lane's handkerchlt-f," said Ponlotowsky, his eyes cold. "You may." said Dan as quietly, his blue eyes like sparks from a star, "trouble me for hell!" And lifting from the table Ponlotowsky's own half-emptied glass of champagne, the boy flung the contents full In the Hungarian's face. The wine dashed agalnstPonltowsky's lips and In his eyes. Blair laughed out loud, his hands In his pockets. The Insult was low and noiseless; the little glass shattered as It fell so softly soft-ly that with the music Its gentle crash was unheard. Tonlotowsky wiped his face tranquilly tran-quilly and bowed. "You shall hear from me after I have taken Miss Lane home." "Tell her," said the boy, "where you left the handkerchief, that's all." CHAPTER XXVIII. Such Stuff as Dreams. Dan was in his room at the hotel. He woke and then slept again. Nothing Noth-ing seemed strange to him nothing seemed real. It was three o'clock In the morning, the rumble of Paris was dull; it did not disturb him, for he seemed without the body and to have grown giantlike, and to fill the room. He had a sense of suffocation and the need to break through the windows and to esjspe into ether. The entrunce of Ponlotowsky's two friends was a part with the unreal naturalness. One was a Roumanian, the other a Frenchman both spoke fluent English. Dan, his eyes fixed on the foreign faces, only half saw them; The Boy Flung the Contents Full in the Hungarian's Face. they blurred, their voices were small and far away. Finally he said: "All right, all right, I can shoot well enough; this kind of thing isn't our custom, you know I'd as soon kill him one way as another, as a matter of fact. No, I don't know a darned soul here." There was a confab Incomprehensible In-comprehensible to Dan. "It's all one to me, gentlemen." he said. "I'd rather rath-er not drag in my friends. Fix it up to suit yourselves." He wanted them to go to be alone to stretch his arms, to rid himself of the burden of sense and be free. And after they had left, he remained in his window till dawn. It came soon, midsummer dawn, a singularly tender morning in his heart- His mind worked with great rapidity. He had made his will in the States. He wished he could have left everything to Letty Lane, but if, as Ruggles said, he was a pauper? Perhaps it wasn't a lie after all. Dan had written and telegraphed Ruggles asking for the solemn truth, and also telling him where he was and asking the older man to come over. If Ruggles proved he was poor, why, some of his burden bur-den was gone. His money had been a burden, he knew It now. He might have no use for money the next day. What good could it do him in a fix like this? He was to meet Ponlotowsky Ponlo-towsky at five o'clock in a place whose name he couldn't recall. He had seen it advertised, though; people went there for lunch. They were to shoot at twenty-five paces he might be a Rockefeller or a beggar for all the good his money could do him in a pinch like this. His father wouldn't approve, the old man wouldn't approve, but he had sent him here to learn the ways of the old world. A flickering smtle crossed his beautiful, set face. His les sons hadn't done him ninth good; he j would like to have seen good old Gor- ; don Galorey again; he loved him he ! had no use for Ruggles, no use it had been all his fault- His mind ; reached out to his father, and the old i man's words came dinning back: "Buy the things that stay above ground, my boy." What were those things? He had thought they were passion he had thought they were love, and he had put all on one woman. wom-an. She couldn't stand by him, now that he was poor. The spasm in his heart was so sharp that he made a low sound In his throat and leaned against the casing of the window. He must see her, touch her once more. The fellows Ponlotowsky's seconds had chosen to be Dan's representatives j came In to "fix him up." They were in frock coats and carried their silk hats and their gloves. He could have laughed at them. Then they made him think of undertakers, and his blood gTew cold. He handled the revolvers re-volvers with care and Interest. "I'm not going to let him murder me, you know," he told his seconds. They helped him to dress, at least one of them did, while the other took Dan's place by the window and looked to the boy like a figure of death. The hour was getting on; he heard his own motor drive up, and they went down, through the deserted hotel. The men who had consented to act for Dan regarded their principal curiously. curious-ly. He wasn't pale, there was a brightness bright-ness on his face. "Partons," said one of them, and told Blair's chauffeur where to go and now to run. "Partons." CHAPTER XXIX. ' The Picture of It All. As far as his knowing anything ol the customs of it all, it was like leading lead-ing a lamb to slaughter. Villebon, lovely, vernal, at a latet hour the spot for gay breakfasts and gentle rendezvous, had been designated desig-nated for the meeting between Dan and Poniotowsky. There in his motor i he gave up his effort to set his thoughts clear. Nothing settled down. Even the ground they flew over, the trees with their chestnut plumes, blurred, were indistinct, nebulous, as if seen through a diving-bell under the sea. Fear he didn't know the word. He wasn't afraid it wasn't that; yet he had a certainty that it was all up with him. He was young very young and he hadn't done much with the job. His father would have been ashamed of him. Then all his thoughts went to Her. The two men in the motor floated off and she sat there as she had sat yesterday in her marvel-ously marvel-ously pretty , clothes her little coral shoes. He had held those bright, little feet in his hands on the Thames day; they had just filled his great hands. Then Letty Lane, too, spirited away, and the boy's thoughts turned to the man he was to meet. "The affairs are purely formal," he had heard some one say, "an exchange of balls, without with-out serious results." f (TO BE CONTINUED.) |