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'T/ZE UNIT OT THE LINE”
SHIRLEY BRYAN, stenographer for a great
Iron Corporation, is the first action on the scene.
The story begins with a suburban train pulling
out from under the marble corridors of a grand
Terminal Station.
Barry Moore, Miss Bryan’s employer, plays
the role of “The Man of Iron.” He is trying to
build a collossal fortune.
Gregory Ford, a Harvard athlete, a Princeton
theologue, a multi-millionaire, is deeply interested
in the question, propounded by the Book of Job,
"If a man die, shall he live again?” because a
specialist has told him, his days are numbered.
Henry Brown, editor of the Water Oaks Ga
zette, is a discovery of Ford’s. He is a lover of
poetry, psychology, economy. He is an environ
ment-fighter of the best type.
Gregory Ford and his mother rent one-half
of the old -colonial Bryan home, and wealth and
poverty are only across the hall from each other.
Mrs. Ford is a woman, "who has never had a
thrill.” Mrs. Bryan is a breeze of sunshine for
T was scarcely ten o’clock when Shir
ley reached the Sanitarium of St. An
thony. It was a red brick building
capped with white marble, and the great
pillared front looked attractive and
home-like, in a certain massive way.
Ford was seated in the green-walled
reception room, which, with its cream
window shades, high cabinet mantle, and
I
mission furniture, presented a cool and inviting
contrast to the glare and heat outside. He crossed
the floor and shook hands with Shirley gravely.
He had donned his new spring suit of dark gray,
which was relieved by a white carnation on the
lapel of his coat and a light four-in-hand held in
place by a diamond scarf pin under his square chin.
This rig was contrary to the morning uniform
adopted by the male visitors to Palm Beach. Manson
said so, and Manson had almost drowned at Palm
Beach. Shirley was unaware that her coat suit of tan
voile was becoming, or that the exquisite solorless
ness of her complexion was enhanced by a black hat
trimmed with artistic effectiveness in roses, and
pansies and black chiffon ribbon.
‘‘Miss Byran,” Ford said, as she sank down in
a large mission chair near the mantel, “I hope
that we are not going to mark our friendship, at
this late day, as the clash of wills?”
Shirley studied the tracery on the back of one
of her gloves. Then she raised her eyes and met
the blue brilliancy of his glance unflinchingly.
“That depends,” she answered in a quiet voice.
“Are you going to make me put it into words,”
he asked in a voice of controlled emotion, “how
much I am attached to Little Nell, and how hor
ribly cut up I am over the whole affair? Why I
haven’t slept two consecutive hours since the acci
dent occurred; and this morning I have had a
long motor ride, in order to sweep the mists out of
my mentality, if possible.”
She answered in a quick, earnest tone.
“I never doubted for one moment, Mr. Ford,
that your attitude would be that of a real friend
in the matter. And if you think that I have come
here in the role of a critic you are simply mistaken,
that is all.”
Ford rose, crossed the room, and leaned against
the mantel, while he looked down on the girl who
knew so well how to fence with him in all of his
moods; and he had so many he was like unto a
lightning-change artist, sometimes, because of the
rapidity with which he put on and off the mental
veils of his spirit.
“Well, then,” he said with a smile, “suppose
we continue the discussion from that basis. What
is the best thing to do for the little girl we love,
right now?”
XIX.
Vy Odessa Strickland Payne and Lamar Strickland Payne
SYNOPSIS
Shirley's sake, and she begins to draw young
Ford’s confidence.
Then there is Little Nell, the child of wis
dom. And, on the horizon looms a girl, a
cousin of the Fords, Ethel, by name, who will
play a dramatic part as the story progresses.
There is a wreck of the Suburban train, of
which Mrs. Bryan has a physic vision. Her daugh
ter, Shirley, who is aboard, escapes unhurt, but
she measures up to her part as a heroine, by her
loving sympathy to those less fortunate.
Shirley Bryan is apparently interested in a
degree in both young men, though she is not
attached to either. She longs for the higher self
of Barry Moore to triumph, over his love for
money; and she desires that the young millionaire
may live, and disappoint the specialist who has
predicted for him an early demise.
Little Nell is injured by being thrown from the
motor car of the young millionaire. She was
rushed to the hospital, but Mr. Ford is dissatis
fied both with the verdict of the physicians and
the slowness of her improvement.
“Let her stay here,” Shirley answered decisively,
“until she is well enough to travel.”
‘ 1 And watch her suffer, ’ ’ Ford returned, 1 ‘ through
the long nights, and grow paler and weaker every
day. ’ ’
“But how could you take her to Johns Hopkins,
for example, without risk?”
“Place the child on a litter here,” he answered,
“and have her carried to the train, and then have
her met in the same way. Os course I will take a
physician with me, and a trained nurse, and use
every precaution. ’ ’
“What does mother say about your plan, Mr.
Ford?” Miss Bryan asked after a long moment.
“That she will not permit Little Nell to go unless
you consent.”
Shirley rose and went to the nearest window
and stood looking out at the smooth, gray asphalt
of the street, 'which glared white and hot in the
morning sunshine.
“Responsibility,” she murmured, “is always
confronting me, and I have had so much of it. I
wonder why,” she continued, a hint of tears in her
voice, “for, after all, I am only a girl.”
Ford had stepped just back of her, and, as he
noted the slender grace of her figure, the reflective
shadow on the pale face, the dark bronze of the
hair arranged so charmingly under the black hat,
he murmured:
“An unusual girl!”
Shirley heard him and, turning, smiled archly.
“Yes, if I agree to the verdict of Gregory Ford’s
will. Otherwise?”
She made a helpless gesture with one white, un
gloved hand, and trailed to the door.
“I must see Little Nell,” she insisted, “our
Goddess of Wisdom, before I decide one way or the
other. ’ ’
Ford nodded, smiling slightly.
Mrs. Bryan met them in the upper hall.
“My dear Breeze,” she said as she kissed her,
“I am very glad to see you, and so sorry, my child,
that you had such a time finding us.”
“I wish to see Nell,” Shirley said, “if it is per
missible. I don’t mind hunting for lovely people.”
Ford gave his white carnation a twist. He would
tell Manson that he was lovely, and Manson would
deny it.
“Lovely people,” echoed Mrs. Bryan, with the
ghost of a smile. She motioned toward an open
door. “She is in there, Shirley.”
Little Nell lay on a single, white cot, looking
very pale, but with a bright light in the beautiful
depths of her dark blue eyes. ‘ ‘ Why, it’s my sister
Shirley!” she exclaimed.
“You may kiss me on my left ear. I scraped
the skin off my right ear and part of my back. I
smell very much like an arnica bottle, Breeze.”
The Golden Age for April 29, 1909.
Shirley kissed her on the left ear, blinking back
the tears and wondering at the queer contraction
in her throat.
“Mr. Gregg says,” the white-robed patient con
fided, “that I am to be a Fifth avenue belle now.
I am to have a tiny Victoria to ride in, with a
groom not over four feet high. I am to belong
to him.”
“I think that the Mater and I might dispute Mr.
Gregg’s claim,” Shirley answered, just as Ford
and Mrs. Bryan entered the room.
“That remains to be proven,” Ford countered, as
he came and stood by the head of the .bed, smiling
tenderly down on the child.
“The Goddess of Wisdom ought to ride in a
Victoria, and I think that Fate has given me some
claims on her future.”
Shirley thought he was jesting, but she looked up
at her mother, who stood at the foot of the bed,
rather gravely.
“Little Nell resented the verdict of the physicians
of St. Anthony’s guild so stormily,” Mrs. Bryan
explained, “last night.”
“Quite stormily,” Little Nell interrupted to say.
“1 most cried my eyes out.”
“That Mr. Gregg,” Mrs. Bryan resumed calmly,
“made up a fairy story about a young lady who
went about on crutches scattering gold with both
hands.”
“How could she achieve it?” Shirley asked in a
puzzled tone.
“She achieved it,” Little Nell said. “Mr. Gregg
said so. Perhaps she wore a wide blue silk girdle
around her waist, and it was full of good things.”
And then, almost before they could realize it, her
white lids fell down over the blue eyes, and she
went fast asleep under their astonished gaze.
Ford crossed the room to the trained nurse.
“Tell me,” he queried anxiously, “is it ex
haustion?”
“I don’t understand the case,” confessed the
trained nurse. “I presume that it is from the
effect of some anesthetic administered to her.”
“Oh!” said Ford. He drummed against his
teeth with a yellow octagonal pencil. Then he con
sulted a time table splashed with red lines.
“How about oJlhns Hopkins, Miss Shirley?”
whirling on her suddenly, in that masterful way that
his brokers knew so well.
“I think that we had best take her back home to
die,” she said, with a suppressed sob, as she turned
away.
♦ ♦*»*****♦
That night as Shirley combed out the glittering
lengths of her hair before the mirror in her mother’s
bed room, at the private boarding house where she
was comfortably established, she smiled back at
the image therein reflected dreamily.
“Mater, I have got a revelation to make to you,”
she said in a low, musical voice, “that I think will
give you an agreeable surprise.”
“What about?” Mrs. Bryan asked quietly.
Shirley held the silver comb aloft, in one white
hand, and half turned towards her mother, who sat
in a low rocker near the window.
“Barry Moore, the Man of Iron,” Shirley re
plied, “I informed him that I intended to resign
the other day —it was just after he had blown the
roof off, metaphorically—and he changed his tac
tics so quickly, that I have been wondering about
it ever since. Miss Ford’s phone came soon after
the contratemps, about Little Nell, you know, and
he took me in his own private car to the Terminal,
and, besides that, gave me an envelope with SIOO
in it, S4O being a check for night work. So you
see, Mater dear, 1 that more things are achieved by
prayer than the world dreams of,’ indeed! He has
been so entirely different since, that I feel quite
hopeful about the final result. Only I should like to
know what you think, Mater, about it all; because
I, of course, realize that my judgment is not in
fallible. ’ ’
“If it was. Breeze, you would be lonesome,” her
