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Show & zomi Randolph cncsTriL ant LILLIAN CHESTER r . i J5L liLUSTRATCDC.D.RiiODCS I f.j SYNOPSIS. 6 Af a veslry mr-'-tiri of tin? Market chuirii SarKcnt listens to a I!:.'unsU,m al.i.ut id,- s:il- of llu- ehurc'i 'T-ni,Tils In K,lu;inl K. Allison. local Tn-liiiii kir.K, ami wliun (i.sli-'l h'-r npin-wn npin-wn i,f iho ihurrh l,y liov. Smllh Hovd. ll !h api;i ri rir ly a lucrative- busini-3.J. 'iii.-nins,: Allison lakos Gail riiliim in ins frjii lor cai. WIhoi hu simi-sis he Is -mill., I I,, ,,,, tll). laun-ls of Ills i-i;)i.'i-irn.its, she asks the disturbing 'ifii.sr ion : "Why"'" Call, returning lo her !n.-le .Inn s home from ln-r drive with Al-us,ri, Al-us,ri, limls cold ll isa iproval In the eyes 'f Key. Smilh Hryil, who is ealllni; there At ii li,,i,Ml,., uarly Cail linds the world tm.-onilorialily lull of men. and Allison (-lls Jim Saiareru ihat his new atnhilion (s In e,Hiiiier Hie world Allison St. iris a 'iIiukii fu, eonsolldatlon and control Of r.he enlire I ra nsporl a.l ion system of the worlil. (iaM heeomes popular. Allison A-alns control of t ranseoiili nenln 1 traflle arranges to ahsorh tin- Vedder court 'iiein.-nt iMoperty of .Market Siuare 'unrrli, Oail visits Vedder court and meets Uoyd there. CHAPTER VIM Continued. "You are blaming the church with a i'ault which lies in the people," protested pro-tested the rector, shocked and disturbed, dis-turbed, and yet feeling it his duty to s-:t Gail right. He was ashamed of himself for having been severe with tier in his mind. She was less frivolous frivol-ous than he had thought, and what she needed was spiritual instruction. "The 5jonle are lukewarm." "What else could they be with the watery spiritual gruel which the church provides?" retorted Gail. "I am interested in knowing what your particular new religion would be iike," remarked Daddy Mannir.r. his (twinkling eyes resting affectionately on her. It would be a return to the simple faith in God," Gail told him reverently. reverent-ly. "It is still in the hearts of the jeopIe, as it will always be; but they Stave nowhere to gather together and worship." Daddy Manning laughed as he detected de-tected that bit of sarcasm. "According to that we are wasting our new cathedral." "Absolutely!" and it struck the rector rec-tor with pain that Gail had never looked more beautiful than now, with liter cheeks flushed and her brown eyes snapping with indignation. "Your cathedral will be a monument, built out of the profits wrung from squalor, .to the vanity of your congregation. If I were the dictator of this wonderful city of achievement, I would decree 'that cathedral never to be built, and Vedder court to be utterly destroyed!' "It is perhaps just as well that you are not the dictator of the city." The young Rev. Smith Boyd gazed down at Iter from his six feet of serious purpose, pur-pose, with all his previous disapproval disappro-val intensified. "The history of Market Mar-ket Square church is rich with instances in-stances of its usefulness in both the spiritual and the material world, with evidence of its power for gsod, with justification for its existence, with reason rea-son for its acts. You make the common com-mon mistake of judging an entire body from one surface indication. Do you suppose there is no sincerity, no conscience, con-science, no consecration in Market Square church?" His deep, mellow baritone vibrated with the defense of Ijis purpose and that of the institution which he represented. "Why do you euppose our vestrymen, whose time is f enormous value, find a space amid their busy working hours for the affairs af-fairs of Market Square church? Why do you suppose the ladies of our guild, who have agreeable pursuits for every hour of the day. give their time to committee and charity work?" He paused for a hesitant moment. "Why do you suppose I am so eager for the building, on American soil, of the most magnifioar'. house of worship in the world? Ga!''s pretty upper lip curled. "Personal ambition!" she snapped, and, without waiting to see the pallor which struck his face to stone, she heeled her way out through the mud to her coupe. CHAPTER IX. The Storm Center of Magnetic At traction. "Brother Bones," said Interlocutor Ted Teasdale commandingly, with his knuckles on his right knee and his elbow at the proper angle. "Yes, sir, Mr. Interlocutor." replied Willis Cunningham, whose "black-face makeup" seemed marvelously absurd in connection with his brown Vandyke. "Brother Bones, when does everybody every-body love a storm?" "I don't knew, Mr. Interlocutor," ad jti.iud Brother Bones Cunningham, touching his kinky wig with the tip of one finger. "When does everybody love a storm?" Interlocutor Ted Teasdale roved his pye over the assemblage, of fifty or more, in his own ballroom, and smiled in a superior fashion. The ebony-faced ebony-faced semicircle of impromptu min-Ftrels. min-Ftrels. banded together that morning, leaned forward with anticipatory grins. They had heard the joke in rehearsal. It was a corker! "When it's a Gail," he replied, whereat Gail Sargent, at whom everybody every-body looked and laughed, Pushed pret r.Ily, and the bones and tambos madf ji flourish, and the interlocutor an- t nounced that the Self Help Glee club would now sing that entrancing ditty, entitled "Mary Had a Little Calf." It was only ir the blossom of the evening at Ted Teasdale's country house, the saint being about eleven o'clock, and the dance was still to begin. be-gin. Lucile Teasdale's vivid idea for making her house party notable was to induce their guests to amuse themselves; them-selves; and their set had depended upon hired entertainers for so long that the idea had avl the charm of distinct dis-tinct novelty. Fine? No end of it! One could always be sure of having a lively time around Lucile and Ted Teasdale and Arly Fosland. Gerald Fosland was at this party. Fine chap, Gerald, and beautifully decent in his attentions .o Arly. Pity they were so rotten boved with each other; but there yon were! Each should have married a blonde. Gail Sargent fairly scintillated with enjoyment. She had never attended so brilliant a house party. Her own set back home had a lot of fun, but this was in some way different. The people were no more clever, but there were more clever people among them; thaf, vas it. There had been a wider range from which to pick, which was j why, in New York, there were so many circles, and circles within circles. The men whom Lucile and Arly had collected were an especial joy. They had all the accomplished outward symbols sym-bols of fervor without any of its oppressive op-pressive insistence. Gail, as an agreeable agree-able duty to her new found self, experimented ex-perimented with several of them, and found them most amusing and pleasant, pleas-ant, but nothing more disturbing. Dick Rodley was the most persistent, persist-ent, and, in spite of the fact that be was so flawlessly handsome as to excite ex-cite ridicule. Gail found herse"lf, by and by, defending him against her own iconoclastic sense of humor. He reached her after the minstrel show, while Houston Van Ploon and Willis Cunningham were still struggling profanely pro-fanely with their burnt cork, and he stole her from under the very eyes of Jack Lariby, while that smitten youth was exchanging wit, at a tremendous loss, with caustic Arly Fosland. "Have you seen the new century plant in the conservatory?" Dick asked, beaming down at her, his black eyes glowing like coals. He strolled with Gail to the seat behind be-hind the rose screen, but it was fully engaged, and he led the way out toward to-ward the geranium alcove. "Where is the century plant?" He was a tremendously pleasant fellow. When she walked through a crowded room with Dick, she knew, from the . .,-v-. I "There Is No Century Plant," He Shamelessly Confessed. looks of admiration, just what people were saying; that they were an extraordinary ex-traordinary handsome couple. "There is no century plant," he shamelessly confessed. "I knew it," and she laughed. "I don't mind admitting that it was a point-blank lie," he cheerfully told her. "I wanted to get you out here alone, all to myself," and his voice went down two tones. He did it so prettily! "My happy, happy childhood days." laughed Gail. "The boys used to talk that way on the way home from school." "1 don't doubt it," and Dick smiled appreciatively. "The dullest sort of a boy would find himself saying nice things to you; but I shall stop it." "Oh, please don't!" begged Gail. "You are so delightful at it." He pounced on a corner half hidden by a tub of ferns. There was no bench there, but it was at least semi-isolated, and he leaned gracefully against the window ledge, looking down at ber earnestly as she stood, slenderly outlined out-lined against the green of the ferns, in her gown of delicate blue sparkling with opalescent flakes. "That's Just the trouble," he com plained. "I don't wish you to be aware that 1 am saying what you cap pretty things. 1 wish, instead, to be effective." and there was a roughness in his voice which had come for the first time. She was a trifle startled by it, and she lowered her eyes before the steady gaze which he poured dowu on her. Why, he was in earnest! "Then take me to Lucile." she smiled up at him. and strolled in toward to-ward the ballroom. Willis Cunningham met them at the door. "You promised me the first dance." he breathlessly informed Gail. He bad been walking rapidly. "I've the second one, remember, Gail," Dick reminded her. as he glanced around the ballroom for his own .partner, but Gail distinctly felt his eyes following her as she walked away with Cunningham. "I know now of what your profile reminds me." Cunningham told her; "the Charmeaux 'Praying Nymph.' It is the most spiritually beautiful of all the pictures in the Louvre." "I wonder which is the stronger emotion in me just now," she returned; re-turned; "gratified vanity or curiosity." "1 hope it's the latter." smiled Cunningham. Cun-ningham. "I recall now a gallery in which there is a very good copy of the Charmeaux canvas, and I'd be delighted delight-ed to take you." "I'll go with pleasure," promised Gail, and Cunningham turned to her with a grafeful smile." "I would prefer to show you ttu original," he ventured. "Oh, look at them tuning their drums," cried Gail, and he thought that she had entirely missed his hint, that the keenest delight in his life would be to lead her through the Louvre, and from thence to a perspective perspec-tive of picture galleries, dazzling with all the hues of the spectrum, and as long as life! He had other things which he wanted want-ed to say, but he calculatingly reserved re-served them for the day of the picture viewing, when he would have her exclusive ex-clusive 'attention; so, through the dance, he talked of tr;?3 far from his heart. He was a nice chap, too. Dick Rodley was on hand with the last stroke of the music, to claim her for his dance. By one of those waves of unspoken agreement, Gail was being be-ing "rushed." It was her night, and she enjoyed it to the full. Van Ploon danced with her, danced conscientiously, keeping perfect time to the music, avoiding, with practiced adroitness, every possible pocketing, or even hem contacts with surrounding surround-ing couples, and acquitting himself of lightly turned observations at the expiration ex-piration of about every seventy seconds. sec-onds. He quite approved of her; extraordinarily ex-traordinarily so. He had never met a girl who approached so near the thousand thou-sand per cent grade of perfection by all the blue ribbon points. It was while she was enjoying her second restful dance with Van Ploon that Gail, swinging with him near the south windows, heard the honk of an auto horn, and near the conclusion of the dance, saw Allison standing in the doorway of the ballroom, with his hands in his pockets, w'atching her with a smile. Her eyes lighted with pleasure, and she nodded gayly to him over Van Ploon's tall shoulder. When the dance stopped she was on the far side of the room, and was instantly the center of a buzzing little knot of dancers, from out of which carefree laughter radiated like visible flashes of musical sound. She emerged from the group with the arms of two bright-eyed bright-eyed girls around her waist, and met Allison sturdily breasting the currents which had set towards the conservatory, conserva-tory, the drawing rooms, or the buffet. "Nobody has saved me a dance," he complained. "Nobody expected you until tomor row," Gail smilingly returned, introducing intro-ducing him to the girls. "I'll beg you one of my dances from Ted or somebody." some-body." "One will be enough for me, unless you can steal me some more of your own," he told her, glancing down at her, from coiffure to blue pointed slippers, slip-pers, with calm appreciation. "You are looking great tonight," and his gaze came back to rest in her glowing eyes. Her fresh color had been height ened by the excitement of the evening but now an added flush swept lightly over her cheeks, and passed. "I'll see what I can do," she specu lated, looking at her dance card. "I think one is all you get." I m lucky even to have that," declared de-clared Allison in content. "The fourth dance down. That will just give me time to punish the buffet. I'm hungry as a bear. I started out here without my dinner." Her next partner came in search of her presently, and the music struck up, and Allison, nodding to his many acquaintances jovially, for he was in excellent humor in these days of building, build-ing, and planning, and clearing ground for an entirely new superstructure of. life, circled around to the dining room, where he performed savage feats at the buffet. Soon he was out again, standing quietly at the edge of things, and watching Gail with keen pleasure, both when she danced and when, in the intermissions, the gallants of the party gravitated to her like needles to a magnet. Her popularity pleased him, and flattered him. Suddenly he caught sight of Eldridge Babbitt, a middle-aged man who was watching a young woman with the same pleasure Allison was experiencing in the contemplation con-templation of Gail. "Just the man I wanted to see," announced an-nounced Allison, making his way to Babbitt. "1 have a new freightage proposition for the National Dairy Products insolidation." Babbitt brightened visibly. He had been missing something keenly these past two days, and now all at once he realized what it was: business. "1 can t see any possible new angle." returned Babbitt cautiously, and with a backward glance at the dashing young Mrs. Babbitt. He headed in stinctively for the library. Laughingly Gail finished her third dance down. She had enjoyed several sparkling encounters in passing with Dick Rodley, and she was buoyantly exhilarated as she started to stroll from the floor with her partner. She had wanted to find cherub-cheeked Marion Kenneth, and together they walked through the conservatory, and the dining room, and the deserted billiard bil-liard room, with its bright light on the green cloth and" all the rest of the 'rooms in dimness. 'There was a nar row space at one point between the chairs and the table, and it unexpectedly unexpect-edly wedged them into close contact. ,:ii,lil3i"!w She Was Glad to Rescue Herself From the Whirl of Anger. With a sharp intake of his breath, the fellow, a ruddy-faced, thick-necked, full-lipped young man who had followed fol-lowed her with his eyes all evening, suddenly turned, and caught her in his embrace. Gail, turning, hurried out of the side door to the veranda. Her knees were trembling, but the fresh, cold air steadied her, and she walked the full length of the wide porch, trying instinctively in-stinctively to forget the sickening humiliation. hu-miliation. She was near a window, and, advancing a step, she looked in. It was the library, and Allison sat there, so clean and wholesome looking, look-ing, with his pink shaven face and his white evening waistcoat, and his dark hair beginning to sprinkle with gray at the temples. He was so sturdy and so strong and so dependable looking, as he sat earnestly- talking with Babbitt. Bab-bitt. Gail hurried to the front' door and rang the bell. ".Hello, Gail," greeted the cheery voice of Allison, as she came in. "My dance next, isn't it?" His voice was so good, so comforting, comfort-ing, so reassuring. ."I. think so," she replied, standing hesitantly in the doorway, and thankful thank-ful that the lights were canopied in this room. Allison drew the memorandum pad toward him, and rose. "By the way, there's one thing I for got to tell you, Babbitt, and it's rather important." He hesitated and glanced toward the door. "You'll excuse me just half a minute, won't you, Gail?" She had noticed that assumption of intimate understanding in him before, and she had secretly admired it. Now it was a comfort and a joy. "Surely," she granted, and passed on in to the library alcove, a sheltered nook where she was glad to be alone, to rescue herself from the whirl of anger, and indignation, and humiliation humilia-tion above all, humiliation which had swept around her. ' Her face was hot and cold by turns, and she was almost al-most on the point of crying, in spite of her constantly reiterated self-ad monishment that she must control herself her-self here, when Allison came to the door of the alcove. "All right, Gail," he said, laconically, She felt suddenly w-eary, but she rose and joined him. -When she slipped her hand in his arm, strong, and warm, and pulsing, she was aware of a thrill from it, but the thrill was just restfulness. "You look a little tired," judged the practical Allison, as they strolled, side by side, into the hall, and he patted the slender hand which lay on his arm. "Not very," she lightly replied, and unconsciously she snuggled her hand more comfortably into its resting place. A little sigh escaped her lips, deep-drawn and fluttering. It was a sigh of content. CHAPTER X. "Gentlemen, There Is Your Empire!" The seven quiet gentlemen who' sat with Allison at his library table, fol-i fol-i lowed the concluding flourish of his hand toward the map on the wall, and either nodded or blinked appreciatively. appreciative-ly. The red line on his map was complete com-plete now, a broad, straight line from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and to it were added, on either side, irregular, angling red lines like the legs of a centipede, cen-tipede, the feeders of the various sys terns which were under control of the new Atlantic-Pacific railroad. "That's a brilliant piece of engineering, engi-neering, Allison." observed huge Rich ard Haverman, by way of pleasant comment, and he glanced admiringly at Allison after his eye had roved around the little company of notables. The feat of bringing these seven mer together at a specific hour was greater great-er than having consolidated the brilliant bril-liant new Atlantic-Pacific railroad "Let's get to the details," barked a voice with the volume of a St. Bernard. Ber-nard. It came from Arthur Grandin. the head of the Union Fuel company, which controlled all the wood and coal in the I'nited States, and all the oil In the world. His bald spot came exactly on a level with the back of his chair, and he wore a fierce mustache. "I'm putting in the Atlantic-Pacific as my share of the pool, gentlemen," explained Allison. "My project, as I have told you. is to make this the main trunk, the vertebrae as it were, of the International Transportation company. I have consolidated with. the A.-P. the Municipal Transportation Transporta-tion company, and I have put my entire en-tire fortune in it, to lay it on the table absolutely unencumbered." He threw down the Atlantic-Pacific railroad and the Municipal Transportation Transporta-tion company in the form of a one-sheet one-sheet typewritten paper. "We'd better appoint someone to look after the legal end of things," suggested the towering Haverman. whose careless, loungjng attitude contrasted con-trasted oddly with his dignified long beard. "I'll take care of it," said W. T. Chis-holm Chis-holm of the Majestic Trust company, and drawing the statement in front of him, he set a paperweight on it "The first step is not one of incorporation," incor-poration," went on Allison. "Before that is done there must be but one railroad system in the United States." Smooth-shaven old Joseph G. Clark nodded his head. There was but one cereal company in the United States, and the Standard, in. the beginning, had been the smallest. Two of the heads of rival concerns were now in Clark's employ, one was a pauper, and three were dead. He disliked the pauper. pau-per. Robert E. Taylor of the American Textiles company, a man who had quite disproved the theory that con structive business genius was confined to the North, smoothed his gray mustache mus-tache reflectively, with the tip of his middle finger, all the way out to its long point. "I can see where you will tear up the east and west traffic situation to a considerable extent," he thoughtfully commented; "but without' the important impor-tant north and south main trunks you cannot make a tight web." (TO BE CONTINUED.) |
