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Show Mil &' HALLIE ERMINE RIVES -A g ILLUSTRATIONS LAUREN 5TOUT J igP !&a . - - '- n ; . SYNOPSIS. I ! Jnlm Y.iliunt, a ricfii society favorite. Buclil.;ny discovers that the Valiant corporation, cor-poration, which his father founded and which was the principal source of hla wealth, has failed. He voluntarily turns it over his private fortune to the receiver for the corporation. His entire remaining possessions consist of an old motor car. a f white bull dog and Damory court, a neg- . hcttd estate in Virginia. On the way to Pamory co.urt he meets Shirley Dand-e Dand-e ridce, an auburn-haired beauty, and de- ides that lie is going to like Virginia immensely. im-mensely. Shirley's mother, Mrs. Dand-8. Dand-8. ridge, and Major Bristow exchange rem iniscences during wiiich It is revealed ' that the major. Valiant's father, and a i man named Sassoon were rivals for the .. hand rrf Mrs. Dandridge in her youth. Sassoon and Valiant fought a duel on her account in which the former was killed, i Valiant finds Damory court overgrown with weeds and creepers and the build-s. build-s. Ings in a very much neglected condition, v ;,, I CHAPTER IX. Continued. jj He trudged away into the shadows, hut presently as the new master of Damory Court stood in the gloomy ." hall, he heard the shambling ,step ' again behind him. "Ah done neglect- uated ter ax yo' name, suh. Ah did, lC fo' er fac'." n "My name is Valiant. John Val iant." ?. Uncle Jefferson's eyes turned up- li ward and rolled out of orbit. "Mah ra Uwd!" he ejaculated soundlessly. And with his wide lips still framed in about the last word, he backed out v- of the doorway and disappeared. '' Alone in the ebbing twilight, John nf Valiant found his hamper, spread a s, napkin on the broad stone steps and q, took out a glass, a spoon and part of 0 a loaf of bread. The thermos flask v. was filled with , milk. It was not a ?r splendid banquet, yet he ate it with . a great content as the bulldog at his m feet gnawed his share of the crust. js lie broke his bread into the milk as he had not done since he was a child, and ate the luscious pulp with a keen relish bred of the long outdoor day. It was almost dark when the meal !f was done and, depleted hamper in hand, he reentered the empty echoing rs house. He went into the library, 18 lighted the great brass lamp from the le motor and began to rummage. The 1 drawers of the dining-room sideboard u' - yielded nothing; on a shelf of the but-'h but-'h Ter's pantry, however, was a tin box '3. which proved to be half full of wax m candles, perfectly preserved, n- "The very thing!" he said triumph antly. Carrying them back, he fixed ie several in the glass-candlesticks and al set them, lighted, all about the somber lrf room till the soft glow flooded its a. every corner. "There," he said, ij "that is as it should be. No big bla- ,,,r taut search-light here! And no glare of modern electricity would suit that p. . old wainscoting, either." ( He dragged the leather settee to the Jt ' porch and by the light of the motor- lamp dusted it thoroughly, and wheeling wheel-ing it back, set it under the portrait which bad so attracted him. He washed the glass from which he had 10 dined and filled it at the cup of the garden fountain, put into it the rose :)f from his hat and set it on the read- re ing-stand. The small china dog st caught his eye and he picked it up nf casually. The head came off in his n. hands. It had been a bon-bon box and Q; was empty save for a narrow strip of yellowed paper, on which were writ- ten some meaningless figures: 17-2S- r S4-0. He pondered this a moment, then thrust it into one of the empty lUfieohliules of the desk. On the latter lat-ter stood an old-fashioned leaf-calendar; the. date it exposed was May 11th. "jriouslv enouirh the same date M .-) Smm 'H3sh 1 Hsl limpid He Shuddered as He Stooped to Pick L'p the Weapon. would recur tomorrow. The page bore n t:i'.oiatio:t: "Every man carries his (:;; rn a riband about his neck." it Tin hue had been quoted in his n fathir's letter. May 14th how much o '. at e.-.ie and that motto may have I'.icati'. tcr him : lie id'f to push the shutter wider ar.d in the movement his elbow sent a ihr.llow iase of morocco .leather that il l'Kd iuii on the desk crashing to the j 'per. It opened and a heavy metallic ,! -bject relied almost to his feet. He r i;w at a fvlanee that it was au old- rVishi.'e, u rusted dueling pistol. Hie ijo: had originally held two Wstol '. tie shuddered as he stooped .. ' ri.'k up the weapon, and with the c'.aw'i.,c repuptiance mingled a pang- ins a:ic.rr and humiliation. From his "j very babyhood it had always been so tfcu: unvjuquorcble aversion to the touch of firearms. There had been moments mo-ments in his youth when thi3 unreasoning unrea-soning shrinking had filled him with a blind fury, had driven him to strange self-tests of courage. He had never been able to overcome it. Analyza-tion Analyza-tion had told him that his peculiar abhorrence was no mere outgrowth of this. It lay far deeper. He had rarely, rare-ly, of recent years, met the test. Now, as he stood in these unaccustomed surroundings, with the cold touch of the metal the old shuddering held him, and the sweat broke in beads on his forehead. Setting his teeth bard, he crossed the room, slipped the box with its pistol between the volumes vol-umes of the' bookcase, and returned to his seat. The bulldog, aroused from a nap, thrust a warm muzzle between his knees. "It's uncanny, Chum!" he said, as his hand caressed the velvety head. "Why should the touch of that fool thing chill my spine and make my flesh tiptoe over my bones? Why should I hate a pistol? Do you suppose sup-pose I was shot in one of my previous existences?" For a long while he sat there, his pipe dead, his eyes on the moonlighted moon-lighted out-of-doors. The eery feeling feel-ing that had gripped him had gone as quickly as it had come. At last he rose, stretching himself with a great boyish yawn, put out. all save one of the candles and taking a bath-robe, sandals and a huge fuzzy towel from the steamer-trunk, stripped leisurely. He donned the bath-robe and sandals and went out through the window to the garden and down to where lay the little lake ruffling silverly under the cpoon. On its brink he stopped, and teasing back his head, tried to imitate imi-tate one of the bird-calls but was unsuccessful. un-successful. With a rueful laugh he threw off the bath-robe and stood an instant glistening, poised in the moonlight moon-light like a marble faun, before he dove, straight down out of sight. Five minutes later he pulled himself him-self up over the edge, his flesh tingling tin-gling with the chill of the water, and threw the robe about his cool white shoulders. Then he thrust his feet into his sandals and -sped quickly back. He rubbed himself to a glow, and blowing out the remaining candle, can-dle, stretched himself luxuriously between be-tween the warm blankets on the couch. The dog sniffed Inquiringly at his hand, then leaped up and snuggled snug-gled down close to his feet. , John Valiant's thoughts had fled a thousand miles away, to the tall girl who all his life had seemed to stand out from his world, aloof and unsurpassed unsur-passed Katharine Fargo. He tried to picture her, a perfect chatelaine, graceful grace-ful and gracious as a tall, white, splendid splen-did lily, In this dead house that seemed still to throb with living passions. pas-sions. But the picture subtly eluded him and he stirred uneasily under the blanket.' After a time his hands stretched out to the reading-stand and drew the glass with its vivid blosom nearer, till, in his nostrils, its musky odor mingled with the dew-wet scent of the honeysuckle from the garden. At last his eyes closed. "Every man carries car-ries his fate on a riband about his neck," he muttered drowsily, and then, "Roses re(j roses " And so he fell asleep. CHAPTER X. The Hunt. He awoke to a musical twittering and chirping, to find the sun pouring into the dusty room in a very glory! He rolled from the blanket and stood upright, filling his lungs with a long deep breath of satisfaction. He felt singularly light-hearted and alive. The bulldog came bounding through the window, dirty from the weeds, and flung himself upon his master in a canine rapture. 'Get out!" quoth the latter, laughing. laugh-ing. "Stop licking my feet! How. the dickens do you suppose I'm to get into my clothes with your ridiculous antics going on? Down, I say! Hark!" He broke off and listened. "Who's that singing?" The sound drew nearer a lugubrious lugu-brious chant, with the weirdest minor reflections, faintly suggestive of the rag-time ditties of the music-halls, yet with a plaintive cadence. "Good morning. Uncle Jefferson." The singer broke off. set down the twig-broom that he had been wielding and came toward him. "Mawniu', suh. Mawnin ." he said. "Hopes yo'-all slep' good. Ah reck'n dem ar birds I woke yo' up; dey's makin' seh er i 'miration." I "That. k you. Never slept better in I my life. Am 1 laboring under a delusion delu-sion v hen I imagine I smell coffee?" I Just then there came a voice from the open door of the ititchen: "Calls yo'se'f er man. yo' trifiin' reconstructed recon-structed niggah! Won marstah gwine-ter gwine-ter git lie brekfr.s' wid' yo' ramshack-lin' ramshack-lin' ennui' wid dat dwag all dis ! Gav e! s-bie ;sid mawr.in'? Go fotch I Mi'e mo' f.ah-wood uis minute. Yo' ' heah?" ' A turbaned head poked itself ! throv.sh the door, with a good-natured I leaf-brown face beneath it, which I broadened into a wide smile as its I owner bobbed energetiea.lv at Va- liant's greeting. "Fo' de I.awd!" she i exclaimed, wiping floury hands on a gingham apron. "Yo' sho' is up early, but Ah got yo' brekius' ready, suh." "All right, Aunt Daphne. I'll be back directly." He sped down to the lake to plunge his head into the cool water and thereby there-by sharpen the edge of an appetite that needed no honing. He came up the trail again to find the reading-stand transferred to the porch and laid with a white cloth on which was set a steaming coffee-pot, with fresh cream, saltless butter and crisp hot biscuit; and as he sat down, with a sigh of pure delight, in his dressing-gown a crepy Japanese thing redeemed from womanishness by the bold green bamboo of its design de-sign Uncle Jefferson planted before him a generous platter of bacon, eggs and potatoes. These he attacked with a surprising keenness. As he buttered his fifth biscuit he looked at the dog, rolling on his back in morning ecstasy, ecsta-sy, with a look of humorous surprise. "Chum," he said, "what do jyou think of that? All my life a single He Craned His Neck, but It Had Passed the Line of His Vision. roll and a cup of coffee have been the most I could ever negotiate for breakfast, and then it was apt to taste like chips and whet-stones. And now look at this plate!" The dog ceased winnowinn his ear with a hind foot and looked back at his master with much the same expression. Clearly his own needs had not been forgotten. forgot-ten. "Reck'n Ah bettah go ter git dat ar machine thing," said Uncle Jefferson behind him. "01' 'ooman, heah, she 'low ter fix up de kitchen dis mawn-in' mawn-in' en we begin on de house dis eve-nin'." eve-nin'." "Right o," said Valiant. "It's all uphill, up-hill, so the motor won't run away with you. Aunt Daphne, can you get some help with the cleaning?" "He'p?" that worthy responded with flue scorn. "No, suh. Moughty few, in ue town 'cep'n low-down yaller new-issue new-issue trash Jst am' wu'f killin'! Ah gwineter go fo' dat house mahse'f 'fo' long, hammah en tongs, en git it fix' up!" "Splendid! My destiny is in your hands. You might take the dog with you, Uncle Jefferson; the run will do him good." When the latter had disappeared and truculent sounds from the kitchen indicated that the era of strenuous cleaning had begun, he reentered the library, changed the water in the rose-glass rose-glass and set it on the edge of the shady front porch, where its flaunting blossom made a dash of bright crimson crim-son against the grayed weather-beaten brick. This done, he opened the one large room on the ground-floor that he had not visited. It was double the size of the library, a parlor hung in striped yellow silk vaguely and tenderly faded, with a tall plate mirror set over a marble-topped marble-topped console at either side. In one corner stood a grand piano of Circassian Circas-sian walnut with keys of tinted mother-of-pearl and a slender music-rack music-rack inlaid with morning-glories in the same material. From the center of the ceiling, above an oval table, depended de-pended a great chandelier hung with glass prisms. The chairs and sofas were covered with dusty slip-covers of muslin. He lifted one of these. The tarnished gold furniture was Louis XV, the upholstery of yellow brocade with a pattern of pink roses. Two Japanese hawthorn vases sat on teak-wood teak-wood stands and a corner held a glass cabinet containing a collection of small ivories and faience. He went thoughtfully back to the great ball, where sat the big chest on which lay the volume of "Lucile." He pushed down the antique wrotight- iron hasp and threw up the lid. It j was filled to the brim with textures: heavy portieres of rose-damask, ta"ble-eovers ta"ble-eovers of faded soft-toned tapestry. ' window-hangings of dull green all i with tobacco-leaves laid between the i folds and sifted thickly over wi'h the sparkling white powder. Al the bot- lor.!;' relied in tarry-smelling papier, he found a half-dozen thin, Persian prayer-rugs. i "Phew!" he whistled. "I certainly : ought to be grateful to that law firm ' that 'inspected' the place. Think of 1 the things lying here all these years! j And that pt-'eder everywhere! It's done the work, too, for there's not a sign of moth. If I'm not careful, I'll stumble over the family plate it seems to be about the only thing wanting." want-ing." He thought a moment, then went quickly into the library and began to ransack the trunk. At length he found a small box containing keepsakes of various kinds He poured the medley on to the table an uncut moonstone, an amethyst-topped pencil that one of his tutors had given him as a boy, a tiger's claw, a compass and what-not. Among them was a man's seal-ring with a crest cut in a cornelian. He looked at it closely. It was the same device. The ring had been his father's. Just when or how it had come into his possession he could never remember. remem-ber. It had lain among these keepsakes keep-sakes so many years that he had almost al-most forgotten its existence. He had never worn a ring, but now, as he went back to the hall, he slipped it on his finger. The motto below the crest was worn away, but it showed clear in the marble of the hall-mantle: I clinge. His eyes turned from the carven words and strayed to the pleasant sunny sun-ny foliage outside. An arrogant boast, perhaps, yet in the event well justified. justi-fied. Valiants had held that selfsame slope when the encircling forests had rung with war-whoop and blazed with torture-fire. They had held on through Revolution and Civil war. Good and bad, abiding and lawless, every generation gener-ation had cleaved stubbornly to its acres. I clinge. His father had clung through absence that seemed to have been almost exile, and now he, the last Valiant, has come to make good the boast. His gaze wavered. The tall of his eye had caught through the window a spurt of something dashing and vivid, that grazed the corner - of a far-off field. He craned his neck, but it had passed the line of his vision. The next moment, however, there came trailing on the satiny stillness the high-keyed ululation of a horn, and an instant later a long-drawn hallo-o-o! mixed with a pattering chorus -of yelps. He went close, and leaning from the sill, shaded his eyes with his hand. The noise swelled and rounded in volume; vol-ume; it was nearing rapidly. As he looked the hunt dashed into full view between the tree-boles a galloping melee of khaki and scarlet, swarming across the fresh green of a wheat-field, wheat-field, behind a spotted swirl of hounds. "Confound it!" said John Valiant belligerently; "they're on my land!" They were near enough now for him to hear the voices of the men, calling encouragement to the dogB, and to see the white ribbons of foam across the flanks of the laboring horses. v One scarlet-coated feminine rider, detached from the bunch, had spurred in advance ad-vance and was leading by a clean hundred hun-dred yards, bareheaded, her hat fallen back to the limit of its ribbon knotted under her chin, and her waving hair gleaming like tarnished gold. "How she rides!" muttered the solitary soli-tary watcher. "Cross-saddle, of course, the sensible little sport! She'll never in the world do that wall! Yes, by George!" John Valiant's admiration admira-tion turned to delight. "Why," he said, "it's the Lady-of-the-Roses!" He put his hands on the sill and vaulted to the porch. CHAPTER XI. Sanctuary. The tawny scudding streak that led that long chase had shot into the yard, turning for a last desperate double. It saw the man in the foreground and its bounding, agonized little wild heart that so prayed for life gave way. With a final effort, it gained the porch and crouched down in its 'corner, an abject, sweated, hunted morsel, at hopeless bay. Like a flash, Valiant stooped, caught the shivering thing by the scruff, and as its snapping jaws grazed his thumb, dropped it through the open window behind him: "Sanctuary!" quoth he, and banged the shutter to. At the same distant, as the place overflowed with a pandemonium ot nosing leaping hounds, he saw the golden chestnut reined sharply down among the ragged box-rows, with a shamefaced though braze.n knowledge that the girl who rode it had seen. She sat moveless, her head high, one hand on the hunter's foam-flecked neck, and their glances met like crossed swords. The look stirred something vague and deep within him. For an unforgettable instant their eyes held each other, In a gaze rigid, challenging, almost defiant; then it broke and she turned to the rest of the party spurring in a galloping zigzag: zig-zag: a genial-faced man of middle age in khaki who sat his horse like a cavalryman, a younger one with a reckless dark face and straight black hair, and following these a half-dozen youthful riders of both sexes, one of the lads heavily plastered with mud from a wet cropper, and the girls chiefly gasps and giggles. The elder of the two men pulled up beside the leader, his astonished eyes sweeping the house-front, with its open blinds, the wisp of smoke curling from the kitchen chimney. He said something to her, and she nodded. The younger man, meanwhile, had flung himself from his horse, a wild-eyed wild-eyed roan, and with his arm thrust through its bridle, strode forward among the welter of hounds, where they scurried at fault, hither and thither; yelping and eager. "What rotten luck!" he exclaimed. "Gone to ground after twelve miles! After him, Tawny! You mongrels! Do you imagine he's up a tree? After him, Bulger! Bring him here!" He glanced up, and for the first time saw the figure in tweeds looking on. Valiant was attracted by his face, its dash and generosity overlying its inherent in-herent profligacy and weakness. Dark as the girl was light, his features had the same delicate chiseling, the inbreeding, in-breeding, nobility and indulgence of generations. He stared a moment, and the somewhat supercilious look traveled over the gazer, from dusty boots to waving brown hair. ; "Oh!" he said. His view slowly took in the evidences of occupation. "The house is open, I see. Going to get it fit for occupancy, I presume?" "Yes." The other turned. "Well, Judge Chalmers, what do you think of that? The unexpected has happened at last." He looked at the porch. "Who's to occupy it?" "The owner." (TO BE CONTINUED.) |