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"THE LADY TROM ALA3A7IA”
Odessa Strickland Payne and Lamar Strickland Tayne, Authors of "Psyche”, "Limit of the Line”, "Mission Girl”, TZtc .
HE early morning sunshine glinted ra
diantly on the gold lines of the big
green motor car drawn up before the
great white 'pillars iof the Churchill
mansion. In the landscape garden,
across the way, from which the suburb
derived its name of Hayden Park—the
blue birds were flashing about gaily
among the green stretches of artistic
T
shrubbery; and a grey stuffed swan posed dramat
ically within a sheltered niche of a boulder in
the midst of the artificial lake, seemed to view
the picturesque scene with philosophic calm, tho
the waves shimmered with rainbow irridescence to
the very foot of his island throne.
This park was one of June Churchill’s esthetic
joys.
The white, winding box-bordered walks, magnolia
groups, Norway pines, and lemon thickets, were all
so arranged about the narrow oblong lake, as to keep
their changeless charm through the varying seasons.
It was an artist’s dream of embodied rest for tired
city eyes; a picture not without rugged effects, but
whose strongest appeal was not altogether in the
green vistas of the woodland slopes, or the perfec
tion of artistic detail, but in the silence which brood
ed over it, always, like a benediction after prayer.
Miss Churchill stood at her sitting room window
upstairs this morning and looked down, with reflec
tive eyes, into the magic park across the way. She
was dressed for a motor ride down town, dressed
becomingly but quietly, in a dark green tailor-made
suit, with an ostrich-swathed black hat, and her
dust coat was spread out suggestively across a
velvet davenport, by her side.
June’s eyes were of that photographic sapphire
which brighten and darken, with varying emotions
and moods; her hair was brown; but her mouth was
her most expressive feature, the sensitive, psychic
key to her whole personality. For it published the
self-evident fact, to any psychologist who could read
its message, that Miss Churchill was as sincere
as she was sweet.
“I don’t see why I should care,” she said to her
self, in the silence, with an impatient gesture,
whether Prof. Cam Blake was born in Mexico or
Nova Scotia. Or, if he was educated at Harvard
or in a monastery. Heigh-ho! I am assuredly not
in love with him, or he with me, at present. I
suppose that I am only beginning to resent, like
father has all these years, the Titan grip of unseen
hands. Verily! I wish my grandfather, or my great
grandfather as Von Bulow persists in calling him,
had been a mild, sensible old gentleman, and his
will, a normal document. I trust that I shall not
lose my self poise, and be constrained, in consequence,
to interview all my circle of male friends, as to the
place of their nativity, and, also, as to whether a
Catholic priest or a Protestant parson was their
father confessor, in college days, or in the Univer
sity of Hard Knocks, as Dr. Brantley terms “the
discipline in the real world.”
“June! lam ready,” a gay voice announced from
the doorway, “and, I’ll give you my new, hand-painted
hat pin, if, pardon me, you don’t have to add any
last touches, as usual, to your costume. As Von
Bulow would say ‘Are you, dear heart, fully diked?’”
Miss Churchill swung round from the window and
glanced at her green gloves and grey veil, lying
in colorful condemnation on the center table; but
she answered, philosophically, with a slight smile:
“Fortunately, Rose, I do not happen to be in need
of hand-painted hat pins, just at present. But you,
madamoiselle, why should you wear black exclu
sively this morning? You look startlingly beautiful
in it, of course, but, I do not like the effect, without
some touch of color, since you are not in mourning.
It is shockingly old-fashioned, I suppose, to feel that
way about the dread color, but, somehow, I can’t
change my point of view.
Rose sat down, in a wicker rocking chair, and
picked up, designedly, a hand-mirror that lay on the
ebony table.
CHAPTER VI.
The Golden Age for February 24, 1910.
“I do look like a young and dashing widow,” she
commented artlessly, “quite attractive, don’t you
know, June-abus? Would you advise me to put a
cluster of red roses on my hat? Or tie a blue scarf
round my pretty throat, so as to take off the dole
ful delusion?”
Miss Churchill picked up her muff.
“No, neither flowers or scarf, Rose. You haven’t
time to make any changes in your dress now. But
I do want you to quit wearing half-mourning so much.
It gets on my nerves, dearest. For, since father
told me he was going away, to be absent perhaps
for years, I have grown superstitious, I presume, at
any rate I do not like it.”
Rose let the mirror slip to the floor, while she
turned a shocked face of interrogation to her sister.
“What do you mean, June Churchill?” she demand
ed in a voice that quivered and broke, in the dramatic
question.
“Nothing sadder,” Miss Churchill replied, with a
soft sigh, “than that the President has offered
father a consulship in South America, and he thinks,
at present, that he will accept it.
“Why can’t we go with him?” Rose queried, with
a note of hope in her voice.
“Because, father does not wish it. We had it out,
that red-letter morning he told me about grand
father’s will. I pleaded with him to let you and me
accompany him, even if he did not think it best
for Von Bulow to go. But, no! he refused to enter
tain the proposition. He said that we were old
enough to sustain ourselves, without him! That he
had done his ultimate best for us, and, he has, assur
edly; and that, as we shall have to live some day
without him, it won’t hurt us to try our wings, a year
or so, like soi disent orphans.”
“Did he use that word?” Rose queried, as she rose
to follow her sister down the grand, circular stair
way, to the waiting motor car.
“Yes, he did,” June made answer, as she turned
on the landing and kissed her sister, affectionately.
“But, Rose,” she added as James, the gray-haired
butler, swung back the heavy hall door, “let us hope
that the incontrovertible fact of his going away is
some distance off yet.”
That evening when the electrics flashed their mes
sage of light over the lake at Hayden Park, Rose
Churchill trailed languidly down into the family sit
ting room. She had felt mentally unable to throw
off the weight of June’s revelation all day. For,
frivolous as she was, she loved her father devotedly.
She was in a strangely abstracted mood, and she sat
down on the coal vase, unconsciously near the high
colonial mantel, and stared into the fire.
In her blue and tinsel evening dress she was beau
tiful beyond the average Southern brunette. There
was Creole blood in her veins, which added a richer
luster to her hyacinth hair, and lost itself in the dark
eyes, which were Spanish black, with melting and
golden iris, which sparkled with dangerous effect
under their lonk lashes some times.
Her father, Christopher Churchill, was reading
the evening paper, in his favorite wicker chair, a
chair that no one got into, except through gross
ignorance of Mr. Churchill’s eccentricity. It was as if
Christopher Churchill realized the remorseless flight
of the eagle of time, and had tried to set up a
mark, by which to be recalled, in the minds of his
circle, at least, after he himself, had vanished from
the stage.
Rose studied her father’s smooth, well-shaven
cheek, behind the shield of his paper. His carefully
polished glasses reflected the flashing of the fire.
Overhead, the four electrics burned, in vari-colored
globes, shooting their gold and silver beams down
on the handsome gray head.
“You are grand looking tonight, father,” Miss
Churchill complimented, half frankly, half teasingly.
He did not look up from his paper, but smiled,
a half smile that curved the cheek next to her.
Von Bulow Churchill came in, and flung his top
coat over the back of a chair. He was in full
evening dress, black, immaculate, and the coat to
the evening suit happened to be one of his neigh
bors. Von Bulow had ripped his, in getting into it
too huriedly, and there was no time for tailors or
repairs, so Elbert, the second man, and sometime
valet to Von Bulow had gone out on the Boule
vard to borrow from one of his chums. Sometimes
the folk on the Boulevard do this, though they never
tell, to the folk on the side streets.
Does it fit, son?” queried Christopher Churchill,
a twinkle in his blue eyes as he glanced over his
paper.
\on Bulow examined the sleeves in his friendly
neighbor’s coat critically.
“A lee-tle large in the wrist, Governor, but other
wise a perfect fit.” Von Bulow made answer, return
ing the twinkle, from his own blue orbs, which were
of a darker shade than his father’s.
Rose struggled with laughter.
1 here are some safety pins on father’s dresser,
Von,” she suggested, innocently. Then she rose from
her Japanned throne, and trailed into the conserva
tory.
Von Bulow ignored the hint, and settled himself
in a green Spanish leather rocker, meditatively. He
examined the luxurious room, with critical fastidious
ness. In one corner rose the bronze replica of the
“Victory of Samothrace.” The firelight played upon
it, wantonly, and outlined a weird, grotesque shadow
on the cream and green wall behind. The shadow
wavered in foolish, zigzag lines. The lighted bulk
of an electric car bowled suddenly past an uncur
tained window.
“Push that bell in, Rose, please,” commanded Von
Bulow, as he noted the defect, in the family ma
chinery.
Miss Churchill returned to the conservatory door,
and pushed inward a call bell. Mr. Churchill glanced
over his paper, inquiringly, at Von Bulow. He
followed his son’s glance to the uncurtained window:
“Ah! that was very careless of Elbert, Von, but
don’t rebuke him, when he comes in.”
Elbert, gray-haired, his face wrinkled in fine lines,
his old eyes blinking at the electric glare, entered.
“Marse Christopher?”
Mr. Churchill removed his carefully polished
glasses, crossed his legs, and motioned to Von Bu
low.
“Marse Von?”
Von Bulow opened his finely modeled lips, and
shut them in a swift line of self-control. Hadn’t the
Governor warned him not to rebuke Elbert? He
nodded toward the girl, in blue and tinsel, who was
leaning against the conservatory door.
“I think that you must have left the shade off
the central window, Elbert,” she suggested, gently.
“Dat shade! dat shade!” murmured old Elbert,
blinking blankly at the bare window. “What did I
do wid it?”
He crossed the heavy Brussels art square, noise
lessly, stared behind the statue of the Victory, set a
palm out of his way, and reached forth a hand
that trembled slightly, and pulled out the missing
shade. Then he started to leave the room, but was
intercepted by a query from Von Bulow.
“Where are you going, Elbert?”
“I’s goin’ to get de stepladder, Marse Von.”
Mr. Churchill rattled his paper, remonstratively.
“Leave the job alone, Elbert, until daylight.”
“Yess sah,” with a glance at Von Bulow.
Von Bulow gave his father a meaning glance, with
a slight raising of the eyebrow®.
“Better let the shade be put up, Governor,” he
said, carelessly. “Safer.”
Rose glanced at the bare window, curiously. The
car to the center of the city flashed past the heavy
panes. There was a transient glimpse of the profiles
of the passengers. She heard a bell clang sharply,
through the November dusk. The weird, peculiar
buzzing of the electric current, as the car travelled
city-ward, set her thinking. Would the dream of
Tesla come true, and would there be no more
night? Would man live to see the midnight sky
brilliant as the midday? Then the rich, resonant
(Continued on Page 14.)
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