Demonic Yalan
EE ——— —————————————
Bellefonte, Pa., March 12, 1926.
A
BACHELOR IN BIARRITZ.
(Continued from page 2, Col. 4.)
the longest-winded saxophone. Also
she twice went out to roam in the
arcade with Minot. This appeased
her mother.
“You seemed to be having an es-
pecially good time tonight, dear,” she
said when they were in their suite.
“Did 1?” Dorothy smiled. “Well,
I guess that proves I ought to have
been an actress.”
“Why, how so?”
“Oh, I don’t know!” said Dorothy.
“I'm so sick of all this sham! Noth-
ing’s genuine—nothing! I wish we
were back in Malachi—or even Chi-
cago.” She kicked off her slippers.
“Why do we have to stay here, any-
way?”
Her mother raised her eyebrows.
“Why, I thought we’d made some very
delightful acquaintances here! Mr.
Minot, and——"
“Qh, there are people evreywhere!
Besides”—she wormed out of a four-
hundred-dollar frock—*“besides, I just
refused Ted about an hour ago.”
Mrs. Osborne gasped. “You—you
what?”
Dorothy made a grimace.
“All I want is to get out of this hot-
house atmosphere. It bores me. Let’s
go somewhere else.”
“I think,” said Mrs. Osborne, with
a sigh for the lost Minot, “that you’d
better go to bed. “We'll talk it over
in the morning.”
Dorothy went to her room, and cried
until dawn. But by noon she had
gained her point. She had persuaded
her mother to migrate at the end of
the week.
Of Colcord, Miss Osborne had seen
nothing for two days, but considering
the whir of life at Biarritz and the
variety of plaisance, this wasn’t ex-
traordinary. That is, it wouldn’t have
been extraordinary under previous
conditions. But since he must cer-
tainly have heard some rumor of her
plans, she did think it rather odd that
he hadn’t come to her to express his
sorrow. Odd, not to say unaccount-
able, in view of his protestations of
friendship—especially on the Virgin
Rock.
Yet, after all, what did it signify?
Personally, she didn’t care whether
she ever saw him again.
On the last afternoon she went to
walk with her mother; and as they
«crossed the Avenue Victor Hugo a
familiar figure emerged from a door-
way in front of them. It was Dr. Me-
Garrah.
“Ah!” said Mrs. Osborne.
where you live, Doctor ?
making a call ?”
“I was making a call on a friend of
vours,” said McGarrah. “Pelham Col-
cord.”
“Mr. Colcord. Is he ill?”
Dorothy had lost color. “You don’t
mean—he’s broken down again?”
The Doctor: stared at her. “Hm!
Again? You seem to be—well, it
isn’t far from it. And then this morn-
ing he took a tumble downstairs—I’d
ordered him not to go out, but he
wanted to get over to Palais, I sup-
pose to say good-bye to you—anyway,
it’s a beautiful compound fracture,
just below the knee.”
“But who's taking care of him,
then?”
“I’ve bribed the concierge’s wife to
look in on him once in a while until
I can find somebody.” .
Miss Osborne was breathing rapid-
ly. “Doctor,” she said, “if—if I could
do anything—"
“Thank you, Miss Osborne,” said
MecGarrah dryly, “but I've got one
amateur already. And then—"
“I’m going to see him,” she said.
“Where is he? What floor?”
“Why,” said McGarrah, “he’s on the
top floor. But I'm very much afraid
you can’t see him just yet.”
“Why not?”
“Well,” he said, “for one thing, be-
cause I won’t take you up there.”
“Then I'll go by myself.” She had
flashed out of sight in the doorway.
The Doctor darted after her, but
midway in the first flight he was
blocked by a baby grand piano which
Dorothy had passed on the upper
landing. It caused a delay of five
minutes, and after that he thought
that he might as well take his time
and assist Mrs. Osborne. And Mrs.
Osborne was no chamois.
On the threshold of the Elephant’s
Nest he released her arm. “You'd
‘better let me handle this situation,”
he said brusquely. But as he went
on to the door of Colcord’s bedrooni,
she followed, puffing, and apprehen-
sive.
By nature, neither of them was an
eavesdropper, but for once they were
both guilty. Dorothy was on her
knees, with her arm supporting Col
cord’s head. “Oh, my dear, my dear!”
she was saying, “it was for mother!
I'd promised her! And how could I
have known?”
“But there never was any other
girl,’ said Colcord feebly. “It was
you I meant all the time. I'd tried
every other way to make you tell me,
-ever since I spotted you that first
night—when I was so flabbergasted
"by the way your mother talked that
1 couldn’t talk.” =
“Oh, my dear, I'd promised! How
2ould I have known you knew al-
ready? And how could I have guess
ed you meant me?”
“Then I sort of cracked, do you
see? I'd given you a thousand
chances to tell me, and I couldn’t go
any further. I thought you cared
more for the glitter than you did for
me. It was so one-sided. I'd told you
everything about myself, and you—
then I heard you were going away, sO
I tried to get over to the Palais and—"
“Oh, hush, dear, hush! It’s all
right now! On the Rock—oh, if Id
only understood!” She kissed him.
Doctor McGarrah took Mrs. Os-
borne very firmly by the elbow and
led her back to the little salon.
Mrs. Osborne was very erect and
regal, although her lips were trem-
bling.
“Is this
Or were you
“He's—he’s had a breakdown be-
fore?”
“Three months ago. And desper-
ately sensitive about it, too. Thinks
that for a man of his physique it’s a
disgrace. That’s why he preferred to
pose as a loafer.” :
Then Dorothy came in.
“Mother,” she said, “Pelham and I
are engaged. And I'm going to stay
and take care of him.”
McGarrah cleared his throat.
“Haven't I already explained, Miss
Osborne, that this isn’t an amateur
job?”
There was a long hiatus, during
which Dorothy’s look to her mother
was partly expectant, partly contrite,
and wholly tender. Then, she turned
to McGarrah. “Yes, Doctor, but I
happen to be a graduate nurse of the
Lake Hospital of Chicago. I was
there five years.” She turned back to
Mrs. Osborne. “And, mother—Pel-
ham’s vice president of the Cimarron
Oil Company.”
Mrs. Osborne quivered and then
rose majestically. Her cheeks were
very pink, and two big tears were
hunting a pathway down her nose.
“Qh, well,” she said, “if he’s going to
be my son-in-law—"
Dorothy swallowed hard. “You
see,” she said to McGarrah, with some
difficulty, “mother was never keen on
my going into nursing anyway. She
didn’t think it was—"
“Qh, don’t!” said Mrs. Osborne
shakily. “It’s all over; I'm tired of
pretending. I suppose I could keep
it up—and I did love it, being some-
body over here—and I did hope you'd
marry into a grand family—but, Doc-
tor, I was at the Lake Hospital for 20
years! We'll take your case together.
There, Dorothy! There goes society!
And—and it was just getting so it
wasn’t hardly any strain!”
Mrs. Osborne sought her handker-
chief. “It was my fault. I made
Dorothy promise not to tell. I made
her promise. I wanted her to have a
chance. But we were at the Lake un-
til they struck oil on some land my
husband—he died when Dorothy was a
baby—bought for nothing in Oklaho-
ma when he was a young man in 2
drug store. And the Cimarron Com-
pany leased it from us, and we made
a million. And went down near Cleve-
land to get away from geossip—new-
about it, but I've had such a good time
over here, and when people know—
rich and all. Oh, I have felt sneaky.
But I can’t go on pretending any
more; I can’t! I'm glad it’s over.”
The Doctor was wondering if it
would console her to know what the
popular gossip had been. The gossip
had been before the oil strike the Os-
bornes had worked in a department
store. He decided not.
He cleared his throat. “My dear
Mrs. Osborne, you haven’t enough
trust in us. I can positively assure
you that your friends in Biarritz—in-
cluding myself—will appreciate you
infinitely more than ever.”
“You—you really think so?”
“I know so. And can one of you
stay here now while I run back to my
office for half an hour? Then I'll be
in again, and Ill send up everything
you’ll want. And Miss Dorothy—my
best wishes, forever! Mrs. Osborne,
I congratulate you.”
He hurried away, rejoicing that his
friend Colcord, in coming out of ether
that morning after his leg was set,
had been so flowingly conversational.
—
Colcord had gabbled the whole story
from beginning to end, his recogni-
tion of the Osbornes from their names
and their address, his prior informa-
tion about them, his amazement at
their pretensions, his love for Doro-
thy, his fear that she cared more for
her camouflage than for himself, his
conviction that he could never marry
a girl so ashamed of her past when he
was so unashamed of his own. And
always the sardonic fact that it was
through Colcord’s own company that
the Osbornes had achieved fortune.
And then it had been most for-
tuitious that MeGarrah had met the
Osbornes at the very door, and that
Mrs. Osborne herself had given him
such a marvelous inspiration. To be
sure, he had intended to do what he
could about the affair, but he had nev-
er visualized any outcome so pat and
so brilliant; and he had never known
that he was such an artistic liar.
From his office he telephoned the
Bayonne hospital: “Oh, about those
two nurses you said I could have to-
morrow morning—well, I don’t need
’em now
No, I won’t need ’em at all.”—By Hol-
so 05 0 00 .
worthy Hall—In the Philadelphia Re-
cord.
—Read the “Watchman” and get
the cream of the news.
Better Than Pills
For Liver Ills.
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but what NR
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NIU S SSD APPA
ELECTRICITY
....for Better Home-Making
90 per cent. or more of the housewives in our commun-
ity do their own house-work---
This means that nearly all of our mothers—our home-makers
—are ever seeking more ways to reduce the drudgery of home
“making. This age-old struggle against drudgery in the home
is fast approaching complete victory as it becomes possible to
use more electricity in the household work.
You, too, can use Labor Saving
Devices at, Low Cost,
The second and third steps in the new domestic rate permit you to
add labor-saving devices and heating appliances, and use them on
a cheaper rate than has ever been possible before.
power which transforms your house into a home is now obtaina-
ble at a very few cents per hour.
ollowing is a list of the operating costs—under the new
rates—of the appliances which lessen the drudgery of the
house-work :
Electric Washer. .:0il oo. once Less than 1.5c per hour
Electric Cleaner. _____..___..._____..Less than 1.5c per hour
Electrio Dish Washer _____. __________ Less than 2¢ a day
ElectricFan_...__... ...c..._.. Less than 6-10c per hour
Electric Refrigerator._______.__.______Less than 10c a day
Electric Range (family of six)... .____..___17c per day
Many millions of little motors are destined to enter the home
and do 80 per cent. of the hard muscle work now being done by
the housewife.
RING AAT IIIS EAN PALANAN
That magic
First 35 kilowatt hours
Next 35 6 [1
Allexcess. _...__.. ....
he successful mother always puts First Things First—just
as the successful business man. She cannot afford to give
washing, cleaning, and those other drudgeries the time
which rightly belongs to her children. ;
No lesser duties should interfere with the supreme duty of
spending sufficient time for the proper training of her children.
Certainly these lesser duties should no longer distract her, for
they can be accomplished at very few cents per hour under the
new rate of your electric service company.
Keystone Power Corporation
“Electricity is the Cheapest Item in the Family Budget.”
THE NEW DOMESTIC RATE
Assuming payment within discount period
Lured 10c. per kw, hr.
This rate is applicable to all domestic ser-
vice, including ranges and refrigeration, for
dwellings of not more than twelve rooms.
Effective April Ist, 1926
6c. 66 cs
3¢. 6 .“