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IRA
By Gouverneur Morri z 1
M r. HEMINGWAY had transacted a great
deal of business with Miss Tennant’s
father; otherwise he must have shunned
the proposition upon which she tame to him.
"I'm not asking the hank to do this for me,’
site said, and she looked extra lovely (on pur
pose of course i. “I'm asking you”
Mr. Hemingway poked the cluster of jewels
very gingerly with his forefinger as If tney
were a lizard. •
' Of course,” she said, "papa would do it; hut
he would insist on reasons. My reasons in
volve another, Mr. Hemingway, and so it would
not be honorable for me to give them."
"And yet,” said the banker, twinkling, “your
reasons would tempt me to accommodate you
with the loan you ask for far more than your
collateral.''
"Oh," she said, "you are a business man I
could give you reasons, and be sure they
would go no further—even if you thought
them funny. Rut If papa heard them, and
thought them funny, as he would, he would
play the sieve. 1 don't want this money for
myself, Mr. Hemingway."
"They never do,” said he.
"I wish to lend it In turn," she said, "to a per
son who has been reckless, an^l who is in
»bt. mi in whom 1 believe Rut per
haps.” she went on, "the person, who Is very
i,ii,u. .11 take offense at my offer of help—
In which case, Mr. Hemingway, 1 should re
turn the money to-morrow.”
'This person” he began, twinkling.
“Oh.” she said, “I couldn’t bear to be teased,
if 0fhe person is a young gentleman. Any in-
J rerest that I take in him is a business interest
Pf pure and simple. I believe that, tided over
his present difficulties, he will steady down
and become a credit to his sex. Can I say
more than that?” She smiled drolly.
“And you wish to lend him five thousand
dollars, and your interest in him is platonic?"
"Nothing sc ardent,” said she demurely. “I
wish him to pay his debts, to give me hie word
that he will neither drink nor gamble until
he has paid back his debt to me, and I will
suggest that he go out to one of those big
Western States and become a man.”
Mr. Hemingway swept the Jewels together
and wrapped thehi in the tissue paper in
which she had brought them.
"I am thanking God fervently, ma'am," said
he, "that you didn't ask me for more. You'll
have to give me your note. Ry the way, are
you of age?”
“People,” she said, "are already beginning
to say, 'she will hardly marry now.’ But it’s
how old we feel, Mr. Hemingway, isn’t it?”
"I feel about seven,” said he, "and foolish
at that.”
“And I,” said she. “will be twenty-five for
the second time on my next birthday.”
‘And by the way.” she said, when the de
tails of the loan had been arranged, and she
had stuffed the five thousand dollars into the
palm of a wash glove, "nobody must know
about this, because 1 shall have to say that—
my gewgaws have been stolen.”
"But that will give Aiken a black eye,” said
he.
“I'm afraid It can’t be helped, Mr. Heming
way. Papa will ask point blank why 1 never
wear the pearls he gave me, and I shall have
to anticipate.”
‘‘How?’’ he asked.
”Oh,” she said demurely, “to-night or to
morrow night 1 shall rouse the household with
screams, and claim that 1 woke and saw a
man bending over my dressing table—a maji
with a beautiful white mustache and imperial.”
"Is the truth nothing to you?” he said.
"In a business matter pure and simple,” she
.aid. after a moment's reflection, “it is nothing
p —absolutely nothfiig."
“Not being found out by one's parents is
hardly a business matter,” said Mr. Heming
way.
“Oh,” said she with a shiver, “as a little
girl I went into the hands of a receiver at
least once a month"
"A hand of iron in a velvet glove,” murmured
, Mr. Hemingway
"Oh, no,” she said, "a leather slipper in a
nervous hand. But how can I tli nk you?”
“You could make the burglar .. cl an-shaven
raau," Mr. Hemingway suggested.
“1 will,” che said, “I will —ake him look lute
anybody you say.
“God forbid.” said he. "1 have no enemies.
But seriously. Miss Tenant, if you possibly can.
will you do without a burglary, for the noil
name of Aiken?”
“1 will do what I can,” she said, “hut 1 can’t
make nvomises.”
In the fall from grace of David I.arkin there
was Involved no great show ur natural deprav
ity. The difference betwen a young man who
goes right and a young man who goes wrong
may be no more than the half of one per cent.
And 1 do not know why we show the victims
such contempt and the virtuous such admira
tion. Larkin's was the case of a young man
who tried to do what he was not old enough
to “get away with.” as the saying is. Aiken
did not corrupt him; he was corrupt when he
came, with a bank acount of thirty-five hun
dred dollars snatched from the lap of Dame
Fortune, at a moment when he was minding
some other small boy. Horses running up to
their form, spectacular bridge hands (not well
played), and bets upon every subject that can
be thought of had all contributed. Then
Larkin caught a cold in his nose, so that it
ran ail day and all night, and because the
Browns had invited him to Aiken for a fort
night whenever he cared to come, he seized
upon the excuse of his cold and boarded the
first train. He was no sooner in Aiken than
Dame Fortune ceased minding the other small
boy. and turned her petulant eyes upon Larkin.
Forthwith he began to lose.
The proper course would have been for Lar
kin to open his heart to any of a dozen men.
Any one of them would have straightened him
3Ut mentally and financially in one moment and
forgotten about It the next. But Larkin was
too young, too foolish, and tow full of false pride
io make confessions to any one who could help
him; and he was quite ignorant of the genuine
kindness and wisdom that lurks in the average
ricn man, if once you can get his ear.
But one night, being sure they could not be
construed into an appeal for help, or anything
but a sympathetic scolding, which he thought
would be enjoyable (and because of a full
moon, perhaps, and a whole chorus of mocking
birds pouring out their souls in song, and be
cause of an arbor covered with the yellow jas
mine that smells to heaven, and a little sweet
er), he made his sorry confessions into the
lovely pink hollow of Miss Tennant’s ear.
Instead of a scolding, he received sympathy
and understanding: and he misconstrued the
fact that she caught his hand in hers and
squeezed it very hard; and did not know that
he had misconstrued that fact until he found
that it was her cheek that he had kissed in
stead of her hastily averted lips.
'I am fond of vott, David,' 1 she said, "and
in spite of all the mess you have made of
things, T believe in you; but even If 1 were
fonder titan fondest of you I should despise
myself If I listened to you—now."
But she did not sleep all night for thinking
how site could be of real, material help to the
young man, and cause him to turn into the
straight, narrow path that always leads to suc
cess. and sometimes to achievement.
Kverv Spring the Mannings, who have noth
ing against them except that they live on the
wrong side of town, give a wistaria party. The
Mannings live for the blossoming of the wis
taria which covers their charming porticoed
house from top to toe, and fills their grounds.
Even Larkin, when he paused under the
towering entrance vines, a mauve and a white,
forgot his troubles. He filled his lungs with
the delicious fragrance, and years after the
consciousness of it would come upon him sud
denly And then, coming upon tea tables
standing in the open and covered with good
things, and finding, among the white flannel
and muslin guests, Miss Tennant, very ob
viously on the lookout for him, his cup was
full.
He understood why Dolly’s friends called her
Sapphlra.
Hither because the day was hot or because
of the sandwiches, they found exclusive shade
and sat In it, upon a white seat that looked
like marble—at a distance. Larkin once more
filled his lungs with the breath of wistaria and
was for letting it out in further confessions of
what he felt to be his heart's ultimate depths.
But Miss Tennant was too quick for him. She
drew five one thousand dollar bills from tho
paint of her glove and put them in his hand.
“There,” she said.
Larkin looked at the money and fell Into a
dark mood.
“What is this for?” he said presently.
“This Is a loan," said she, "from me to you;
to be a tiding over of present difficulties, a re
minder of much that has been pleasant in the
past, and an earnest of future well-doing. Good
luck to you, David.”
"Oh, you know as well as I do that a man
can't borrow from a girl.”
“A man?” asked Miss Tennant simply, as If
she doubted having heard correctly. Then, as
he nodded, she turned a pair of eyes upon him
that were at once kind, pained and deeply
thoughtful. And she began to speak In a quiet,
repressed way upon the theme that he had
suggested.
‘‘A man,” she said; “what Is a man? I can
answer better by telling you what a man Is not.
A man is not a creature who ioafs when bo
ought to be at work, who loses money that he
hasn’t got, who drinks liquor that he cannot
carry, and who upon such a noble groundwork
feels justified in making love to a decent, self-
respecting girl. That is not a man, David. A
man would have no need of an»v Help front
me. . . . But you—you are a child that
has escaped from its nurse, a bird that has
fallen out of its nest before it has learned to
fly, and you have done nothing but foolish
things. . . . But somehow 1 have learned to
suspect you of a better self, where, half
strangled w'lth foolishness and extravagance,
there lurks a certain contrition and a certain
sweetness. . . . God knows I should like to
see you a man.” . . .
Larkin jumped to his feet, and all of him
that showed was crimson, and he could have
cried. But he felt no anger, and he kept his
eyes upon hers.
"Thank you," he said; “may I have them?”
He stuffed the bills into his pocket.
“1 have uo security,” he said “But I will
give you my word of honor neither to drink,
neither to gamble, neither to loaf, nor to make
love until I have paid you back interest and
principal.”
“Where will you go? What will you do?”
“West—-God knows. I will do something. . . .
You see that I can’t say any thanks, don't you?
That 1 am almost choking, and that at any
moment I might burst into sob/?"
They were silent, and she looked into his face
unconsciously while lie mastered his agitation.
“Quick, then," said she, “some one’s coming.”
That very night screams pierced to every
corner of the Tennants’ great house on the
Whiskey Road. Those whom screams affect in
one way sprang from bed; those whom they
affect in another hid under the bedclothes. Mr.
Tennant himself, a man of sharp temper and
implacable courage, dashed from his room in a
suit of blue-and-white pajamas, and overturned
a Chippendale cabinet worth a thousand dollars;
young Mr. Tennant barked both shins on a
wood box and dropped a loaded Colt revolver
into the well of the stair; Mrs. Tennant was
longer In appearing, having tarried to try the
effect upon her nerves ar.d color sense of three
divers wrappers. The butler, an Admirable
Crichton of a man, came bearing a bucket of
water in case the house was on fire. Mrs.
Tennant’s French maid carried a case of her
mistress's jewels.
Miss Tennant stood in the doorway of her
room. She was pale and greatly agitated, but
her eyes shone with courage and resolve. Her
arched, blue-veined feet were thrust into a pair
of red Turkish slippers turning up at the> toes.
A mandarin robe of dragoned blue brocade was
flung over her nightgown, in one hand she had
a golf club—a niblick.
"Oh!” she cried, when her father was
sufficiently recovered from overturning the
cabinet to listen, “there was a man in my
room.”
“Which way did he go?”
“Out the window!” cried Miss Tennant.
Her father and brotner dashed downstairs
and out into the grounds. 1 he butler hurried
to the telephone (still carrying his bucket of
Water) and rang Central and asked tor ;he Chief
of Police. Central answered, after a long in
terval, that the Chief of Police was out of-
order. and rang off
Meanwhile Mrs. Tennant arrived, and having
coldly recovered her jewel case from the
custody of the French maid, prepared to be
told the details of what hadn’t happened.
"He was bending over my dressing table,
mamma. ” said Miss Tennant. “I could see him
plainly in the moonlight; he had a mask, and
was smooth shaven, and he wore gloves."
"Did he say anything?”
“Not to me, I think," said Miss Tennant,
"but he kept mumbling to himself so I could
hear: Slit her blame throat if she makes a
move; slit it right into the backbone.' So. of
course, 1 didn’t make a move—i thought he was
talking to a confederate whom I couldn't see.”
"Have you looked to see what he tookt"
"No. But my jewels were all knocking about
on the dressing table. 1 suppose he got them.
“Well," said Mrs. Tennant, "let’s be thankful
that he didn't get mine.”
Miss Tennant and David Larkin did not meet
again until the moment of the latter's departure
from Aiken. And she was only one of a num
ber who drove to the station to see him off.
Aiken felt that It had misjudged iairkin. and
lie departed in high favor. He had paid what
he owed, so Aiken confessed to having mis
judged his resources. He had suddenly
stopped short in ail evil ways, so Aiken con-
confessed to having misjudged his strength of
character. He had announced that he was
going out West to seek the bubble wealth in
tho mouth of an Idaho apple valley, so Aiken
cheered him on and wished him well. And
when Aiken beheld the calmness of his fare
wells to Miss Tennant, Aiken said: "And be
seems to have gotten over that.”
There had been wistaria In Aiken. There
was snow in New York. There was a hurri
cane in Chicago. But in the smoker bound
West there was a line old gentleman in a blue
serge suit and white spats who took a fancy to
David; just when David had about come to the
conclusion that nothing in the world looked
friend erce t gu.c.toe
David shook his head at a brilliantly labeled
cigar eight inches long.
a dozen hearts to beat in the breast where but
one beat before, to be followed, waited on,
adored, bowed down to, and worshipped. She
wished yellow-flowering jealousy to sprout in
David's heart instead of the cairn and loyai
friendliness to which alone the soil seemed
adapted. She knew that he often wrote letters
to a Miss Tennant; and she, would have liked
very much to have this Miss Tennant in her
power and to have scalped her theTe and then.
About noon the next day David requested
speech with his chief.
"I haven’t had a vacation in a year,” said
David. "Will you give me three weeks, sir?”
"Want to go back East and pay off your
obligations?”
David nodded.
”1 have the money and interest in hand,”
said he.
Mr. Grey smiled.
"I 6tippo.se you'll come back smoking like
a chimney, drinking like a fish, betting like a
ACEOJ
“There was a man in my room!” cried the girl as soon as her father was sufficiently recovered
to listen.
“I love to smoke," he said, “but I’ve promised
not to.”
"Better habit than liquor." suggested the
old gentleman in the white spats.
“I’ve promised not to drink.”
“Men who don’t smoke and who don’t drink,"
said the old gentleman, “usually spend their
time running after the girls. My name is
Uriah Grey."
“Mine is David Larkin.” said David, and he
smiled cheerfully, "and I’ve promised not to
make love."
And then, slip by slip, and bet by bet, he
told his story, withholding only the sex of that
dear friend who had loaned him the five thou
sand dollars, and to whom he had bound him
self by promises.
“Well,” said Mr. Grey. “I don’t know as
I’d go Into apple growing. You haven’t got
enough capital."
“But,” said David, “I intend to begin at the
bottom and work up.”
"When I was a youngster,” said Mr.- Grey,
“I began at the bottom of an apple tree and
worked my way to the top. There I found a
wasp’s nest. Then I fell and broke both arms.
That was a lesson to me. Don’t go up for your
pile, my boy. Go down. Go down into the
beautiful earth, and take out the precious
metals.”
“Good heavens!” exclaimed David; “you’re
the Mr. Grey, of Denver.”
“I have a car hitched on to this train,” said
the magnate; “I’d be very glad of your company
at dinner—seven-thirty It’s not every young
man that I'd invite. But seeing that you’re
under bond not to make love until you’ve made
good. I can see no objection to introducing you
to my granddaughter.”
"Grandpa," said Miss Violet Grey, who was
sixteen, spoiled, and exquisite, “make that poor
boy stop off at Denver, and do something for
him.”
"But." said Mr. Grey (Mr. “Iron Grey," some
called him), “if I take this young fellow up, it
won’t be to put him down in a drawing-room,
but in a hole a thousand feet deep, or there
abouts.”
In one matter David was, from the beginning
of his new career, firmly resolved. He would
In no case w-rite Miss Tennant of his hopes
and fears. If he was to bp promoted she was
not to hear of it until after the fact: and she
should not be troubled with the sordid details
of his savings-bank account.
I Should like to say that David's swift up
ward career owed thanks entirely to his own
good habits, newly discovered gifts for mining
engineering and industry; but a strict regard
for the truth prevents. T
His field work ended about the time that Miss
Violet Grey returned from Europe "completely
finished and done up," as she put it herself,
and he became a fixture of growing importance
in Mr. Grey's main offices in Denver, and a
thrill in Denver society.
Platonic friendship's became the rage. David
himself, as leader, maintained a dozen such;
ohiefest of whim was with the newly finished
Miss Grev. At first her very soul revolted
against a friendship of this sort. She was
lovelv, ajid she knew it; with lovely clothes
she made herself even lovelier, and she knew
this, too. She was young, and she rejoiced in
it. And she had always been a spoiled darling,
and she wishes to be made much of, to cause
bookmaker and keeping a whole chorus in pic
ture hats.”
“I think I’ll not even smoke,” said David.
“About a month ago the last traces of hanker
ing left me, and I feel like a free man at
last.”
“But you’ll be making love right and left,”
said Mr. Grey cheerfully, but with a shrewd
eye upon the young man's expression of face.
“At least I shall be free to make love if I
want to.”’
“Nonsense," said Mr. Grey. “People don’t
lhake love because they want to. They do it
because they have to.”
Again David looked troubled and a little sad,
perhaps.
“True,” said he. And he walked meditative
ly back to his own desk, look up a pen. medi
tated for a long time, and then wrote:
“Best friend that any man ever had in the
world! 1 shall be in Aiken on the twenty-fifth,
bringing with me that which I owe and can
pay, and deeply conscious of that deeper debt
that l owe, but never can hope to pay. But I
will do what I can. I will not now take back
the promise I gave, unless you wish; I will
not do anything that you do not wish. And if
all the service and devotion that is in me for
the rest of time seem worth having to you, they
are yours. But you know that.
‘‘DAVID.’’
Neither the hand which Miss Tennant laid
on his, nor the cigarette which she lighted for
him, completely mollified Mr. Billy McAllen.
“You have so many secrets with yourself,”
he complained, "and I’m so very reasonable.”
"True, Billy,” said Miss Tennant. “But if I
put up with your secrets, you should put up
with mine,”
“I have none,” said he, “unless you are rude
ly referring to the fact that I gave my wife
such grounds for divorce as every gentleman
must be prepared to give to a lady who has
tired of him. I might have contracted a pleas
ant liaison; but I didn't. I merely drove up
and down Piccadilly with a notorious woman
until the courts were sufficiently scandalized.
You know that.”
‘But is it nothing,’’ she said, “to have me feel
this way toward you?” And she leaned and
rested her lovely cheek against his.
"At least- Dolly,” said he, more gently, “an
nounce our engagement and marry me ins-- 1 *
of six months. I’ve been patient for eighteen.
It would have been easy if you had given a
good reason . . .”
“M.v reason,” said she, "will be in Aiken to
morrow.”
He made no comment, fearing that she might
seize upon any as a pretext for putting him off.
But he slipped an arm around her waist.
“Tighter, if you like," she said. “I don't
mind. My reason- Billy, is a young man Don't
let your arm slacken that way. I don’t see
any one or anything beyond you in any direc
tion in this world. You know that. There is
nothing in the expression ’a young man' to
turn you suddenly cold toward me. Don't be
a goose . . . Not so tight.” They laughed
happily. “I will even tell you his name,” she
resumed—“David Larkin; and I was a little
gone on him and he was over ears with me.
You weren’t In Aiken the year he was. Well,
he misbehaved something dreadful, Billy; bet
ting himself into a deep, deep hole, and tried
to float himself out. I took him in hand, loaned
him money, and took his solemn word that he
would not even make love until he had paid
me back. There was no real understanding
between us, only"
"Only?” McAllen was troubled.
"Only I think he couldn’t have changed sud
denly from a little fool into a man if he
hadn’t felt that there was an understanding.
And his letters, one every week, confirm that;
though he’s very careful, because of his prom
ise, not to make love in them . . . You see
he’s been working bis head off—there's no way
out of it, Billy—for me ... If you hadn't
crossed my humble path I think I should have
possessed enough sentiment for David to have
been—the reward."
"But there was no understanding?"
“No. Not in so many words. But at the last
talk we had together he was humble and pa
thetic and rather manly, and I
did a very foolish thing."
“What?"
“Oh,” she said with a blush,
“I sat still.”
"But why,” said he. “when you
got to care for me didn’t you let
this young man learn gradually
in your letters to him that—that
it was all off.”
“I was afraid, don’t you see,”
said she, “that if the incentive
was suddenly taken ..way from
him—he might go to pieces. And
I was fond of him, and I am
proud to think that he has made
good for my sake, and the let
ters . . . Oh, Billy, it’s a
dreadful mess. My letters to him
have been rather warm, I am
afraid.”
“But you’ll not be weak, Dol
ly ?”
“Kow—weak?”
“He’ll be very sad and miser
able—you won’t be carried away?
You won’t, upon the Impulse of
the moment, feel that it is your
duty to go on saving him? . . .
If that should happen, Dolly, I
should go to pieces.”
"Must I tell him,” she said,
"that I never really cared? He
will think me such’ a—a liar.
And I’m not a liar, Billy, am I?
I’m just unlucky.”
“I don’t believe,” said he ten
derly, “that you ever told a story-
in your whole sweet life.”
“Oh,” she cried, “I do love you
when you say such things like
that to me . . . Let’s not
talk about horrid things any
more, and mistakes and bugbears
. . . If we’re going to show
up at the golf club tea . . .
It’s Mrs. Carrol’s to-day and we
promised her to come.
“Oh,” said McAllen, “we need
not start for ten minutes . . .
When will you marry- me?”
“In May," she said.
“Good girl,” said he.
“Billy,” she said presently, "It
was all the first Mrs. Billy’s fault
—wasn’t it?”
“No, dear,” said he, “it wasn’t.
It’s never all of anybody’s fault.
Do you care, my Sapphira?”
“No.”
"Whose girl are you?”
“I’m Billy McAllen’s girl.”
“All of you?"
“All of me, Billy—all that is straight in me,
all that is crooked, all that is white, all that
is black . .
“This mouth, Dolly?”
“Mumm.”
And so, as the romantic school has it, “the
long day dragged slowly on.”
David mav have thought it pure chance that
he should find Dolly Tennant alone. But it
was not. She had given the matter not a little
strategy and arrangement. Why, however, in
view of her relations with McAllen, she should
have made herself as attractive as possible to
the eye is for other women to say r .
It was to be April in a few days, and March
was going out like a fiery dragon. The long,
broad shadow of the terrace awning helped to
darken the Tennants’ drawing room, and Vene
tian blinds, half drawn, made a kind of cool
dusk, in which it came natural to speak in a
lowered voice, and to move quietly, as if some
one were sick in the house. Miss Tennant sat
very low, with her hands clasped over her
knees; a brocade and Irish lace workbag spilled
its contents at her feet. She wore a twig of
tea olive in her dress, so that the whole room
smelled of ripe peaches. She had never looked
lovelier or more desirable.
“David!” she exclaimed. Her tone at once
expressed delight at seeing him, and was an
apology for remaining languidly seated And
she looked him over in a critical, maternal way.
“If you hadn’t sent in your name,” she said,
“I should never have known you. You stand
taller and broader. David. You filled the door
way. But you're not really much bigger, now
that I look at you. It’s your character that
has grown . . . I’m so proud of you.”
David was very pale. It may have been from
his long journey.
“And now,” she said, “you must tell me all
that you haven’t written.”
“Not quite yet,” said David. “There Is first
a little matter of business . .
“Oh” she protested.
But David counted out his debt to her method
ically, with the accrued interest.
“But I.” she said, “I, too, have things of yours
to return.”
“Of mine?” He lifted his eyebrows expectant
ly.
She waved a hand, white and clean as a
cherry blossom, toward a claw-footed table on
which stood decanters, ice, soda, cigarettes,
cigars and matches.
“Your collateral," she said.
“Oh,” said David. “But I have decided not
to be a backslider.”
T know.” she said. "But in business—as a
matter of form.”
He stepped to the table, smiling charming
ly, and poured from the nearest decanter into
a glass, added ice and soda, and lifting the
mixture, touched it to his lips and murmured
"To you.” .
Then he put a cigarette in his mouth, and
after drawing the one breath that served to
light it, flicked it. with perfect accuracy, half
across the room and into the fireplace.
Stiii smiling, he walked slowly toward Miss
Tennant, who was really excited to know what
he would do next.
“I gave you one more promise,” he said. "Is
that, too, returned?”
"Of course.” she said, “all the promises yon
gave are herewith returned.”
“Then I may make love?” he asked, very
gently.
“Yes, David.” she said slowly, "you may—as
a matter of form."
“Only in that way?”
"in that way only, David—to me.”
“I thought—I thought,” said the young man
in confusion.
“I made you think so.” she said generously.
“Let all of the punishment that can be heaped
on me . . . David . . There was a
deep appeal in her voice as for mercy and
forgiveness.
“Then,” said he, “you never did care—at all."
But even at this juncture Miss Tennant could
not speak the truth.
“Never, David—never at all—at least, not in
that way,” she said. “If I let you think so It
was because I thought it would help you to
be strong and to succeed . . . God knows
I think I was wrong to let you think so . . ”
But she broke off suddenly a stream of exten
uation that was welling in her mind; for David
did not look like a man about to be cut off In
the heyday of his youth by despair.
“The man,” she said gently, "has found him
another girl!”
The man bowed his head and blushed.
“But I have kept my promise, Dolly.”
”0f course you have- you poor, dear, long-
suffering soul. Oh, David, when i think what
I have been taking for granted 1 am humili
ated and ashamed—but I am glad, too. I cannot
fell you how glad.”
A pair of white gloves, still showing the
shape of her hands, lay in the chair where
Miss Tennant had tossed them. David brought
her one of these gloves.
“Put it on," he said.
When she had done so, he took her gloved
hand in his and kissed it.
“As a matter of form,” he said.
She laughed easily, though the blush of hu
miliation had not yet left her cheeks.
“Tel? me.” she said, “what you would hav«
done, David, if—if I did care.”
“God punish me,” he said gravely, “oh, best
friend that ever a man had in the world, it
I should not then have made you a good hus
band.”
Not long after McAllen was with her.
“Well?” he said.
“Weil,” said she, “there was a train that he
could catch. And I suppose he caught it."
“How did he—er, behave?”
“Considering the circumstances,” said she.
“he behaved very well.”
“Is be hard hit?”
She considered a while, but the strict truth
was not in that young lady.
“I think,” she sajd, “that you may say that
he is hard hit—very hard hit.”
“Poor soul!” said Billy tenderly.
“Oh, Billy!” she exclaimed, “I feel so false
and so old.”
“Old!” he cried. “You! You at twenty-five
say to me at ”——
“It isn’t as if I was just twenty-five, Billy,”
and she burst out laughing. “The terrible part
of it is that I’m still twenty-five.”
But he only smiled and smiled. She seemod
like a little child to him, all innocence and
inexperience and candor.
Then as her laughter merged into tears he
knelt and caught her in his arms.
“Dolly—Dolly!” he said in a choking voice
“What is vour name?”
"rvt’iv ” The tears came s!owly.
“What is your name?”
“I’m BBIy McAllen's girl.” The tears ceased.
“All of you?”
“All of me . . . Oh, Billy—love me al
ways—only love me . .
And for these two the afternoon dragged
slowly on, and very much as usual.
"You are two days ahead of schedule, Da
vid. I’m glad to see you.”
Though Uriah Grey’s smile was bland and
simple, beneath it lay a complicated maze of
speculation; and the old man endeavored to
read in the young man’s face the answers to
those questions which so greatly concerned him,
“You have had a pleasant holiday?”
“A happy one, Mr. Grey.” David’s eyes twin
kled and sparkled.
“Tell me about it.”
"Well, sir, I paid my debts and got back
my collateral.”
“Well, sir?”
“I tasted whiskey.” said David. "I lighted a
cigarette, I registered a be^*i two cents upon
the weather and i made love.'
Uriah Grey with difficulty suppressed a moan.
“Did you?” he said dully,
“Yes,’’ said David. “1 kissed the glove upon
a lady’s hand.” He laughed. “It smelled of
gasoline,” he said.
Mr. Grey grunted.
“And what are your plans?”
“What!” cried David offendedly. “Are you
through with me?”
“No, my boy—no,’’
David hesitated.
"Mr. Grey,” he began, and paused.
“Well, sir?”
"It is now lawful for me to make love,” said
David; "but I should do so with a better grace
if I had your permission and approval.”
“What have I to do with it?”
"You have a granddaughter . .
“What!” thundered the did man. “You want
to make love to my granddaughter!”
“Yes,” said David boldly, "and I wonder what
you are going to say.”
“I have only one word to say—Hurry!”
"David!”
Spools of silk rattled from her lap to the
floor. She was frankly and childishly de
lighted to see him again, and she hurried to
him and gave him both her hands. r
Presently David was looking into the love??
face that he held between his Hands. He nae
by this time squeezed her shoulders, patted heT
back, kissed her feet, her dress, her ua ds, her
eyes and pawed her hair. They were both very
short of breath.
“Violet,” he gasped, “what is your name?'’
“Violet.”
“Whose girl are you?”
“I’m David Larkin’s girl.”
“All of you?”
“All—all—all”
Yet back there in Aiken, Sapphira was ex
periencing the same feelings, and thinking the
same thoughts about them; and so was Billy
McAllen. And when you think that he had
already heen divorced once and that Sapphira,
as she herself (for once truthfully) confessed,
was still twenty-five, it gives you as high an
opinion of the little bare god—as he deserves.