Bewarraic aidan Bellefonte, Pa., March 3, 1916. omm— The Governor’s Lady A Novelization of Alice Bradley’s Play By Gertrude Slebenson Illustrations From Photographs of the Stage Production - [525252585 25252525252525253505 252 TATLT LLL ELIT LTT LY ] COopyright, S18 JES cation Rights Reserved) [Continued from last week.] CHAPTER IIL. As Slade turned from the fright ened, insignificant figure of his flee ing wife, he saw a woman of perfect poise and queenly carriage, a woman a trifle haughty and insolent in her youth and beauty and assured com- mand of all the intricacies of social grace and charm. Her wide, full eyes met his with an engaging, frank curi- osity to see this new factor in the po- litical world. Her gown was a tri- umph of soft, shimmering silk and alluring chiffon—a gown that empha- sized the charm of her proud, statu- esque figure. She was the sort of woman that makes a man glow with pride to present as his wife or daugh- ter. She was all that Mary Slade was not, : Slade stood looking at her, fasci- nated, forgetting for the moment the man she was with, remembering noth- ing but the magnetic personality of the woman whose reputation for do- ing big things :: a big way was al- ready known to him—a woman whose eyes meeting his gave back flash for flash and understanding for under- standing. Almost mechanically Slade found himself acknowledging Scnator Strick: land’s formal presentation of his daughter. Hesitatingly he offered his band, which the girl, perfectly at ase, grasped with a cordial, sympa- thetic pressure. Her eyes were look: fang critically into his, much as if she were trying to read him through and through and take his measure for fu- ture use. Her easy, graceful acceptance of the situation, her thoughtful inquiry for Mrs. Slade’s health, prompted by well .bred sympathy rather than any curi- Jus interest, and the cultured modula- tion of her splendid voice, charmed him as no woman had ever done be- fore. There was nothing of the shy, retir- ng ingenue in Katherine Strickland’s makeup. She was a woman of splen- did physique and wonderful mental de- velopment. Her appeal to a man was that of a dominant intellect as much as of a lovely woman. She immedi- ately impressed Slade as being keen- witted, strong-minded and clever. His admiration displayed itself in his shin- ing eyes and his unusually affable, at- tentive manner. Suddenly he found himself compar- ing his own little old-fashioned wife with this handsome, self-possessed woman before him. What a wife Kath- erine Strickland would be for the gov- ernor of a state! What a picture she would make presiding at the head of a millionaire’s dinner tables! How wonderfully such a woman would adorn the richly furnished rooms of his newly built mansion! Instead of the work-worn fingers of his wife, con- tinuously fumbling with darning threads, he saw, in a mental vision, this woman’s lovely hands constantly engaged in unwinding the threads of problematic political tangles. Here was a woman who would be a man’s wife and comrade—the very antithesis of the household drudge his own wife wag content to be, with no interest outside of the four walls of her home and no desire for anything bigger in life than the daily routine of break- fast, dinner and supper, washing on Monday, ironing on Tuesday, and so on to the end of the week—week after week in the same deadly rut. Here was a woman who would “go along with a man”—possibly a step ahead, blazing the way for new and greater glories and recognizing no limit. Slade brought his reflections to a sudden halt’ as he remembered the girl’s father, “Why, what has happened to you, senator? Your face looks different than it did this afternoon.” “Her fault,” r lied the senator, with a smile of tolerant affection, in- dicating his daughter. “She made me cut my beard this way. It’s French.” Katherine laughed a delightful, throaty little laugh, “Nonsense, father,” she protested. “Of course, I like the West, but I don’t believe in being absolutely typ- ical. I was horrified when I got back and found you so blatantly the typi. cal, much-cartooned Westerner.” “Mr. Slade,” resumed Strickland, “a few influential men from different parts of our state are having a meet: ing in town tomorrow, and I want you to meet them. I'm arranging a little impromptu dinner, and thought Kath: erine might be able to persuade Mrs, Slade ard yourself to join us.” “Oh, father, tell the truth,” Kath- crine interrupted. “These gentlemen want to meet you, Mr. Slade. I hear we're to expect great things of you. You see, I've been mixed up in poli tics all my life, and I do love to have a hand in them.” “She'd run for president if they'd let her,” teased her father. ° “Indeed I would,” the girl admitted, | own mind that no puddle would ‘be sc brazenly. “I’ve got politics in my blocd, and home doesn’t seem like home unless politics are being brewed in our dining-room. So you’ll both come, won't you—you and Mrs. Slade.” Slade was stammering his accept ance when Strickland interrupted ab- ruptly. “How’d you like to be governor, Slade?” . Slade threw back his head with a laugh that was intended to denote complete unconcern, “Oh—that talk! Did the evening papers put that into your head or—” and he paused significantly, “did you put it into the evening papers?” Strickland’s laugh was a practical admission. “It would mean a hard fight, Slade. The water-front crowd's against you, and you can’t get on without their influence.” “Not in this town, at least,” amend- ed Katherine. “You’ve got to have Wesley Merritt, his paper, his highfaluting editorials and his speechmaking—and his wife,” Strickland explained. “He and his crowd run the town.” “Oh, you mean my neighbors?” asked Slade. “They'll come around,” he finished, meaningly. “But, man alive! Only today Mer- ritt’s attack on you was scurrilous. I remonstrated with him myself. He’s your out-and-out enemy. I've tried to get him—to—to come over and shake hands, but he swears he’ll never cross | your threshold—" “I guess they’ll come when I want ‘em to come,” Slade interrupted, with | an assurance his auditors could not understand. “In fact, I'm looking for ’em any minute now,” and he consult ed his watch. “You're looking for them—here—to- night?” gasped Strickland, showing plainly he thought Slade was making a joke of the matter. “Yes, tonight,” replied the would-be governor, quietly, and turned to Kath- erine. Strickland subsided, a question growing in his mind as to whether he had fnlly measured the man he expect: ed to use for his own political and financial ends. There was in Slade’s method of fighting a direct and open quality that would make him hard to handle in the crooked and indirect ways of political life, Katherine Strickland’s eyes nar rowed as she met Slade’s gaze. Her quick, calculating mind saw in this man the possibility of realizing her highest hopes and ambitions. With such a man a woman could scale any heights—reach any goal. He was hard | —yes! But a man needs to be hard in these days and times if he is ever to accomplish anything. In her fer tile brain smoldered ambitions as great as his ambitions that she now realized would never be attained un less she made some great, radical change in her life, She had pushed her father as far as the man would—could go. She had outdistanced every girl in her | circle. She had reached high, but she ! had triumphed. Now she was at the end of her tether. of making some one huge stroke or sinking back into stupid obscurity, a situation all the more bitter because of her previous successes. The thought of settling down into the ev big that she couldn't become a frog of considerable size in it. Now, as her restless brain and soul clamored for higher goals and a wider field, the thought of Slade’s millions, Slade’s dominating, forceful personal ity, Slade’s reputation for sweeping everything before him, Slade’s prob- able governorship, flashed through her mind like a burning streak of electric fire. With him, with his weapons, what a career lay before a woman! Just as suddenly she found herself wondering what sort of a woman had been a mate to this man for so many years. She was conscious of a poign- ant pang of envy—jealousy almost— against this woman who had the op- portunity which was denied her. “Well, what do you think of your own country, now you’re back?” she heard Slade’s voice saying. “Seem big to you?” “Oh, I like Washington,” she said, bringing herself back to the conver- sation with difficulty. Her father, noticing her abstrac- tion, remarked indulgently: “She likes Washington, Slade. She likes the East, but she doesn’t tell it to every- body on account of father’s votes. Now, Slade and I love our western city, eh, Slade?” “Well,” with some reluctance, “it’s a good starting point,” Slade admitted. “Ah!” Katherine exclaimed, now thoroughly herself again. “There's a man for you! He's not going to let a town stand in his way. Mr. Slade, this is father’s Waterloo. He's been a great disappointment to me. That's the worst of parents. We children never know how they're going to turn out. If father had only listened to me it would have been Washington for him—Washington for me. But he wouldn't cross the Delaware. He wouldn't leave the West. If there'd only been a drop of Napoleon in fa- ther,” she concluded with a sudden burst of vehemence. “Napoleon!” repeated the senator. “Yes, Napoleon. He got what he wanted, and nothing ever stood in his path. I just love the way he rode over poor old Josephine’s heart, don’t you?”—and she turned to Slade. “But he was right!” she continued, earnestly, as if she were making a plea for something that lay very close to her own heart. “Why should we let anyone hold us back? I wouldn't. But mother didn’t want to leave the West, so father stuck to his town and hig friends and his state. Now he stands in the background and boosts other men politically. “He wants to boost you,” she added, suddenly, “Letting out secrets,” her father ac- cused, playfully. But Katherine was never more se- rious. “You're his dark horse,” she persisted. “You're a lucky man, senator,” Slade broke in, as he watched Kath- erine admiringly. “You're a lucky man to have a charming young woman behind you in the race.” “That's all we women are for,” an- swered Katherine, bitterly, “standing ; behind some man and watching him It was a matter ! eryday life of the western city where | 1 she was born made her very soul | squirm. Surely there was something more in life for her. Surely there were bigger goals to be gained. She had never realized how empty She Was All That Mary Slade Was Not. the old home life was until now, when she suddenly found herself a part of it again after the brilliant European season and the stimulating, exciting life in diplomatic circles at the capital, The thought of remaining in the West, a big frog in a little puddle, had grown positively hateful to her. Big or little herself, she wanted a big puddle. She was quite satisfied in her do things.” “Why, child alive, you do things yourself,” the senator remonstrated. “She makes busts, Slade—heads. Done some big guns in Europe.” Katherine sighed and leaned back wearily in her chair. “Oh, in my feminine way, I model,” she admitted. “But if there’d been one drop of Na- poleon in father I shouldn’t have had to fall back on molding clay. I should have been molding,” she hesitated, and then finished daringly, “opinions and people.” CHAPTER III. Just how much more freely Kath- erine might have revealed her aims and inspirations, Slade could not know, for at that moment the butler appeared and engaged his attention. As the man withdrew, Slade spread wide his arms and announced gran- diloquently: “The gentleman of the waterfront crowd, if you please. Mr. ‘Wesley Merritt, the gentleman who wasn’t go- ing to darken my door, is here!” He broke off with a loud, mirthless laugh. As well as any man who ever lived, he liked to feel the grip of his own power. He had come to the point where it was genuine satisfaction to humble mer and conquer things. “Wesley Merritt!” the senator was almost too surprised for speech. “After his abuse of you in the paper today—. And Hunt! How did you do it?” “This is the sort of thing I like,” broke in Katherine, eagerly. “Oh, it’s so exciting,” she declared, her eyes glowing with eagerness and animation. “Oh, Mr. Slade, how did you make them kow-tow ?” : Slade’s reply was prevented by the brusque, excited entrance of Merritt and Hunt. The pair, angry and bel- ligerent, strode into the room without a word. Merritt, small, wiry, ener- getic, was in the lead, followed closely by his shadow and echo, Hunt. “Is it true?” he demanded angrily, before he realized that Slade was not alone. “How do you do, senator— Miss Strickland!” he exclaimed, in surprise. “Lovely home you have, Mr, Slade,” he added, trying to adjust him- self to the scene he had not expected. “An astonishing rumor has reached us, Mr. Slade,” he finally declared, get- ting down to the business of his inva- sion. “It concerns you, senator. It concerns every public-spirited man in the city. Is it true, Slade, that you have bought up our entire water front on which our residences—our old, homes—the mansions of the city face, and that you intend building factories there?” “Why, yes,” Slade admitted, with maddening calmness. [Continued on page 7, Col. 1.] RAY-O-LIGHT OIL: : S————————— EH ———————— Ifit does, don’t blame the story, don’t condemn the type or the printing, don’t imagine you've weak eyes, for the fault is probably with your lamp. And it’s a fault that is easily remedied—all that’s needed is a Rayo Lamp. By its clear, steady, white light you can read on and on, get the full pleasure out of reading and without a trace of eye strain. But to get the most and best light from a Rayo Lamp, use ATLANTIC Combined they give the finest light money can buy, an econom- ical light, too, ideal for reading, sewing or playing. Your dealer can show you a Rayo Lamp specially designed for parlor, sitting room or kitchen, from $1.50 up. And each of these rooms needs one—Rayo Lamps are easily cleaned and last a lifetime. As for Atlantic Rayolight Oil, it is the one kerosene that burns in lamp, stove or heater without smoke or smell—gives a great volume of clear, white light, and an intense yet cheap heat. And, do you know, thousands of clever housewives have told us they just can’t get along without Atlantic Rayolight Oil for polish- ingturniture, washing windows, keeping lice off chickens, clean- ing painted woodwork, ete., but mind you, for these purposes ordinary kerosene won’t do them—they must have Atlantic Rayolight Oil. Ask for it by name—costs no more than the un- known kind. The dealer who displays this sign can always supply you. It's wise to get it by the barrel. ATLANTIC REFINING COMPANY useless Question. “Would your wife vote for you as a candidate for office?” my bothering my head about that,” re- plied Mr. Meekton. “I don’t believe Henrietta would let me run in the first place.” Meat Market. (Get the Best Meats. You save nothing by buying poor, thin or gristly meats. I use only the LARGEST AND FATTEST CATTLE and supply my customers with the fresh- est, choicest, best blood and muscle mak- ing Steaks and Roasts. My prices are no higher than poorer meats are elsewhere. I alwavs have — DRESSED POULTRY — Game in season, and any kinds of good meats you want. TRY MY SHOP. P. L. BEEZER, 34-34-1y. Bellefonte, Pa High Street. Fine Job Printing. FINE JOB PRINTING 0—A SPECIALTY—o0 AT THE WATCHMAN OFFICE. There is no style of work, from the cheapest “Dodger” to the finest BOOK WORK, that we car: not do in the most satis- factory manner, and at Prices consist- ent with the class of work. Call on or communicate with this office’ Flour and Feed. (CURTIS Y. WAGNER, BROCKERHOFF MILLS, BELLEFONTE, PA. Manufacturer, Wholesaler and Retailer of Roller Flour Feed Corn Meal and Grain Manufactures and has on hand at all times the following brands of high grade flour: WHITE STAR OUR BEST HIGH GRADE VICTORY PATENT FANCY PATENT The only place in the county where that extraor- dinarily fine grade of spring wheat Patent Flour SPRAY can be secured. Also International Stock Food and feed of all kinds. All kinds of Grain bought at the office Flour xchanged for wheat. OFFICE and STORE—BISHOP STREET, BELLEFONTE, PA. Compare this issue of the “Watchman” with other county “I don't think there's any use of PAPers, and note the difference. Dry Goods, Etc. 7-19 MILL AT ROOPSBURG. LYON & COMPANY. Spring Suits, Coats & Skirts. Our line of Spring Suits is large and all new models. New shaped sleeves; new flare skirts. Coats with the ripple skirt. All the new spring shades. The prices range from $8.00 to 15.00. Coats. Coats. The spring styles in Coats are very attractive. We can show the plain Silk Taffeta Coat with the sherred effect, or the plain cloth in Gaberdene, Poplin and Serge; and for the lady who wants the exclusive styles we can show the most elegant trimmed models. Prices that cannot help but please the most economi- cal buyer. Skirts. Skirts. A full line of the new flare and plaited Skirts in all the new colors and black and white. Silk Waists. New Silk Waists in Georgette Crepe, Crepe de Chine, Striped Silk. Plain colors, white, flesh, nile green, black and mais. Corsets. Corsets. New models in Royal Worcester and Bon Ton Corsets from $1.00 up. or Winter Stock must be sold. Entire remainder of all Winter Coats—plush, corduroy and cloth; Suits for ladies, misses and children; Furs, single Muffs and Sets will be sold regardless of cost. Lyon & Co. .... Bellefonte |
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers