“Bellefonte, Pa, October 7, 1927.
THE STORY OF LIFE.
Only the same old story in a different
strain;
Sometimes a smile of gladness, and then
a stab of pain;
Sometimes a flash of sunlight, again the
drifting rain.
Sometimes it seems to borrow from the
rose its crimson hue;
Sometimes black with thunder,
changed to a brilliant blue;
Sometimes as false as Satan, sometimes
as Heaven true.
then
Only the same old story, but oh, how the
changes ring!
Prophet and priest, peasant, soldier and
scholar, and king:
Sometimes the warmest hand clasp leaves
in the palm a sting.
Sometimes in the hush of even, sometimes
in the mid-day strife;
Sometimes with dove-like calmness, some-
times with passions rife,
We dream it, write it, live it—this weird
wild story of life.
By the Boston Transcript.
A RICH MAN’S GAME.
Tommy Sherdel was one of the
three best polo players in the world.
And he was so poor that he had to
work in a broker's office in Santa Bar-
bara, during those hours he could
spare from the game, for just enough
to keep soul and body together.
If you know anything at all about
high-class polo, you will realize that
these two facts in juxtaposition were
bound to be productive of something
or other. Because polo is the most
expensive game known to a sport-mad
universe and a man must have good
horses if he is to exercise his skill.
Good polo-ponies cost money, have
enormous appetites, require personal
valets and must have private cars
when they travel.
You have heard of very few poor
polo players. They exist, but they
never get out of the minor leagues.
Tommy’s case was the exception. He
was so good it had to be.
Now polo and poverty had existed
side by side for Tommy ever since he
could remember.
His very first memory had to do
with a horse.
He had risen very early in the
morning and gone to his mother’s
room. He could still remember the
big bare room. He loved it becaise
it had a bright, shiny look and smelled
so sweet.
On this particular morning the ear-
ly sun was very bright in that room,
but his mother wasn’t there, so he
went in search of her, his little feet
drifting naturally toward the stables.
And sure enough when he was half-
way across the practise-field that di-
vided the big brick house from the
rambling brick barns, he saw her com-
ing through the clover with old black
Eb at her heels. She had a heavy
overcoat over her flannel night-dress,
and her pretty brown hair was blown
every which way. Her face was white
and drawn—it often was—but she
was laughing, and Tommy immediate-
ly began to run, because he loved his
nother excessively when she laughed.
“We pulled ’em through, Sonny-
bunny,” she said, catching him up and
kissing him all over his rough curly
head in the way he particularly liked.
“It was touch and go, but Eb and I
won. And I tell you we’ve got the fin-
est colt out there ever was bred in
the State of Kentucky. That colt
on to go considerable ways toward
redeemin’ our falen fortunes
Foe min , ought’nt
. Eb said, “Suttinly ought. No colt
in these yere parts got any better
blood fum bofe his daddy and his
mammy ‘an what that colt’s got.”
Tommy didn’t know anything about
fallen fortunes, but he did about colts
and begged so hard to see this one that
at last his mother took him back and
allowed him to peep for a second at
the unbelievably skinny, startled, little
thing, wrapped in an old blue and
white cooler.
In time, Tommy became more fam-
iliar with fallen fortunes and the colts
that were to remedy them and some.-
times did—for a little while. There
was only himself and his mother, and
as he grew older Tommy helped Eb
and little back Hector around the
stables and when he was ten he could
ride anything on the place and jump
any fence or ditch in the county.
“Your father was the finest horse-
man in the South,” his mother used
to say, looking straight at the boy,
straight through him, as though on
the other side of him she saw the
tall, handsome, reckless man she lov-
ed and married and lost all in a brief
81x months when she was very young
—*“don’t you ever forget that.”
And indeed, Tommy Sherdel’s fath-
er had been a fine figure of a man on
a horse. It was the best his friends
could say for him and his worst en-
emy never denied it.
For the matter of that, his mother
rode like a demon. Tommy remem-
bered how once, when he was about
eleven, a big bay gelding went on the
rampage with her. The picture per-
sisted in his mind, his mother in her
old brown riding-habit on the back of
the bright bay, who stood up in his hind
legs squealing madly and striking in
all directions with his forefeet.
They fought it out for half an hour,
the bay with his ears back, his eyes
gleaming and rolling, his teeth bared,
but Tommy’s mother never gave an
inch. At last he stood still, sweating,
foaming, but licked.
So you see it is but natural that
Thomas Sherdel III should grow up
thinking that to be a fine horseman
was the most important and magnif-
icent thing on earth.
His mother clung to the horses
above everything, when folks said she
was a fool and that it was no business
for a woman. Oddly enough, though.
she would have done well if she could
have stayed on the track and away
from the books. If she had stuck to
horses—breeding, selling, even racing
—they might have won through, for
she had a genius for breeding. She
produced three great celts. With one
of them, she actually won the Ken-
tucky Derby.: But every time the
book-makers cleaned her out.
When racing became illegal in the
United States, she went in for polo.
Only the unfortunate accident of her
sex kept Tommy’s mother from being
what Tommy was eventually to be-
come—a ten-goal man.
The polo games that took place on
the practice field at the Branches
must have been a strange sight for
neighbors passing on the country road
—the sturdy boy, hardly big enough
to hold a mallet, the old darky In
overalls and the young one in white
jockey pants, and the brown woman
who laughed aloud in sheer delight as
her pony tore down after the ball.
By the time Tommy was ready to
go to college, his mother had lost all
her prettiness; even the brown curls
were cropped as short as his own.
The woman Tommy kissed good-by
on the steps of the Branches when he
left for Princeton—all the Sherdels
went to Princeton—was a tiny, wiry,
leather-skinnéd person who might
have been any age or sex.
When he came back at the end of
his junior year he took one look at her
and knew instantly that something
momentous had happened.
Across the breakfast table on the
second morning he made her face it.
Everything was gone. His mother
had kept on for the last three years
in the face of insurmountable odds, al-
ways hoping with that gambler’s op-
timism of hers for the break that
would put everything right. The
break had come, but in the wrong di-
rection. They were wiped out. Peo-
ple from the North had taken over
the Branches and were going to re-
model it for a country home.
At that, Tommy winced as though
2 surgeon had suggested remodeling
im.
But the only thing that seemed
desperately to concern his mother
was Tommy’s polo. She knew just
how good he was going to be and she
had planned to raise him ponies sec-
ond to none. Now, her great dreams
of him as an international polo star
were ended. And over that, and that
only, her eyes grew wet.
When he had fully absorbed all this,
Tommy gave his mother a rare kiss—
they were not demonstrative people
—and went out to the stables to con-
sider it. He held his head high, be-
cause that was the way a Sherdel al-
ways held his head. :
But, within, his heart was quaking.
He couldn't, just at first, see how he
was going to survive pulling up his
roots.
He did. But his mother didn’t.
So Tommy Sherdel at twenty-two
started life quite alone in Santa Bar-
bara with nothing to effer but a
Southern drawl, six-feet-two of per-
fectly conditioned bone and muscle
and a genius for polo.
Wi manner of his going West was
is.
At Princeton he had known and
tremendously liked a dark-eyed youth
called—for né apparent reason—
“Doc” Camberwell. Among other
things, over the flowing bowl and the
midnight oil, they had discussed polo.
Doc played polo, but without enthu-
siasm. Doc had little enough enthus-
jagm for anything and least of all for
polo.
He played it entirely because his
father, to see his own phraseology,
doted on it. Having seen Tommy
play, Doc invited him to come out to
Santa Barbara to spend the summer.
“Father,” said Doc, “will dote on
you, my lad. You are what I ought
to be. And if he has you to pester,
maybe he’ll let me alone to follow
more congenial pastimes, such as
yatching and a lot of constructive
drinking.”
When the end of all existing things
came for Tommy Sherdel, Doc renew-
ed the invitation and reenforced it
with the offer of a job in a broker's
office. And since all places outside
the Branches looked more or less
aike to Tommy, he went.
Old man Camberwell offered the
young Southerner the use of his polo-
ponies, which were a fair lot, and
after he had seen him play for an
afternoon said bitterly to Doe, “That
boy’s a polo player. He's got to stand
for the International. Never saw
such horsemanship and his judgment’s
uncanny. By gad, he doesn’t know
the meaning of fear. And let me tell
you something right now, my son. He
loves the game. Doesn’t matter what
else you've got, if you don’t love the
game, you'll never make a great polo
player.”
D “I expect you're right, Father,” said
oc.
Certainly, as time went on, it was
plain enough that only one thing stood
between Tommy Sherdel and all the
highest honors and all the greatest
sport in the game he adored, and that
one thing was money.
Oh, they mounted him. Somebody
always had ponies for him. He was
too good, too valuable to the team to
go unmounted.
But that involved, as it always does
involve, endless complications and pet-
ty jealousies and inconveniences and
much wounded pride. It resulted, as
it always does reslt, in only partial
efficiency for Tommy, since he never
had the same mounts and not always
first-class ones. Half the time, just
as he got a pony to its highest play-
ing point, its owner decided to play
that pony himself. It brought about
friction on the team.
They were good sportsmen, of
course. But there are few sportsmen
anywhere in any game who will spend
thousands of dollars to give another
man a better chance than they have
to win something they themselves
want very much.
After all, outside of sheer imper-
sonal love of the game, Tommy Sher-
del was nothing at all in their lives.
Polo players all know that this is
true, though most of them will deny
it with their last breath.
Most of them will also deny that
social standing and position have any-
thing to do with goal ratings.
Perhaps they are riglt. But this
much is certain. A man who can’t
buy his own polo-ponies is very much
out of luck, and at least ninety-nine
per cant. of the famous polo players
have more than average -ac-
counts. Whereas Tommy Sherdel
usually paid the fifty cents a month
the bank charges you if your balance
is regularly under a hundred dollars.
Thus there came a time when the
West believed that Sherdel was the
best polo player in America. And
yet it looked as though he were go-
ing to give up the game because he
couldn’t afford it and because his hot |
young pride rebelled continually at
the makeshifts and expedients to:
which he was put.
Which brings us without any furth-
er explanation to Mrs. Conie van Nor-
mand.
Sitting in her gorgeous car in the
space reserved for members at the
Midwick Country Club one bright Sun-
day afternoon watching the Midwick
Big Four play a picked team from
Santa Barbara, Mrs. van Normand
said suddenly, “My dear, who in the
world is that boy on the black pony?
I haven't even seen him before.”
She hadn’t. California never saw a
great deal of Mrs. van Normand, in
spite of all the oil-wells she owned
there.
Somebody told her that the boy was
one Tommy Sherdel, of much polo
fame, and Mrs. van Normand shaded |
her eyes and stared at him.
A more eye-filling picture of a!
young man than Tommy Sherdel
presented on a horse it would be dif-
ficult to imagine. He had magnificent
shoulders and a slim, supple waist and
he sat his horse as though he had been
born in a saddle, which, to all intents
and purposes, he had. His face was
tanned to the color of mahogany and
made an exciting background for his
intensely blue eyes and his very white
teeth. And he gave to the first bucks
of his big black pony with a sort of
delighted thrill.
The game was a hot one, for every-
body knows how the Midwick Big
Four plays polo and the presence of
Tommy Sherdel on the Santa Barbara
team brought that otherwise inferior
aggregation up to their level. No use
talking, the boy played like a demon;
he was everywhere at once, he made
impossible strokes that caused even
his ponies to blink in amazement.
And once, toward the end of the game,
when the score was eight all, he stood
up in his stirrups and swiped the ball
in the air, sending it straight between
the goal-posts, which made even the
mos blase spectator stand up and
yell.
Now, one thing must be said for
Connie van Normand. She was frank.
“What a perfectly gorgeous crea-
ture!” she said. “Why has no one
ever told me about him before ?”
And everybody laughed. People al-
ways laughed at Connie van Normand,
and it wasn’t altogether because her
husband had left her ninety million
dollars.
She was really frightfully amusing
and she was always doing exciting
things and she knew everybody worth
knowing on two continents and some
that weren't.
Connie was really one of those peo-
ple you mean when you say, “What is
the world coming to?”
It was Pell Atherton who once re-
marked that short skirts had made
Connie van Normand what she was.
And he was probably right. In the
days of long skirts when faces mat-
tered more, nobody would have paid
much attention to little Constance
Mesmer, least of all the fastidious
Jack van Normand. But nobody could
help paying attention to Connie’s feet
and legs.
And now, what with having the
most divine lipsticks straight from
Paris and one of those figures you
never expect to see except in the illus-
trations of fashion magazines, Con-
nie van Normand had become a fas-
cinating personality, much more im-
portant in our day than a mere beau-
¥.
As soon as the polo game was over
she said, “Pell, fetch me that ador- |
able youth. It is a long time since
I have had a real thrill but I feel one
coming on. I didn’t think there was
anything like that left outside the
movies—and one can hardly associate
socially with those lovely young men
in the movies. My own table man-
ners are bad enough.”
The last thing in the world anybody
expected, including Connie herself,
was that she would fall seriously in
love with Tommy Sherdel. For the
dashing and notorious and frightfully
rich and important Mrs. van Normand
never did anything seriously.
But she fell in love with Tommy
Sherdel. So much in love that noth-
ing else in the world mattered, not
yachts, nor trips to Arabia, nor jew-
els, nor house-parties, nor famous and
amusing people, nor the latest gowns,
nor Paris in the spring, nor New York
in the fall. Everything but love was
as flat and insipid as bootlegger’s
champagne.
And Tommy Sherdel was twenty-
four and the famous Mrs. van Nor-
mand was closer to forty than she. had
ever admitted to any living soul.
Tommy liked her awfully. He lik-
ed her better than any woman he had
ever known. True, he hadn’t known
many. But while with some men wo-
men are a cultivated taste, like olives,
others have a natural flair in that di-
rection. Tommy had inherited more
from his father, it appeared, than a
genius for horsemanship.
Up to this time he had, to the
amazement of his men friends and
the annoyance of feminine Santa Bar-
bara, fought shy of entangling allianc-
es. He didn’t like his riding interfered
with, and as every spare horse of his
time was spent in the saddle, it left
little for women. At night he pre-
ferred to get his sleep so he could be
out at daylight.
Mrs. van Normand dazzled and in-
finitely amused him. She had great
social charm and much experience of
life. She was, in a word, neither the
crude flapper nor the sex-conscious
married woman.
There was little she didn’t know
about men and how to please them.
She made a pal of Tommy. She
made him laugh. She was terribly
interested in everything he said and
did. In the end, he overcame a cer-
tain shyness and poured into her ears
and his great handicap.
“After all,” he said hotly, “a chap
can’t be forever under obligations to !
somebody else. Besides, there are
plenty of other players just as good
as I am that could expect the club
to mount them if they mount me.
Mr. Camberwell has been marvelous,
but he can’t really afford it. So I'm
not going to let him any more. And
‘I'm just no good at making money.”
Mrs. van Normand put down her
coffee cup—they were having coffee
on the terrace after dinner. The
glorious view of the ocean was fram-
ed blackly by a fresco of eucalyptus-
trees and a soft, sprawling mass of
live-oaks. Over the marble balustrade
hung great cascades of roses. Against |
Mrs. van Normand’s white shoulder
nestled a great bunch of fluttering
orchids. They quivered now to the
quick breath she drew.
For she had barely caught herself
in time. It did seem ridiculous at a
moment like that to have ninety mil-
lion dollars and not be able to offer
part of them to this boy.
“I wanted a chance to try for the
international team,” he said slowly,
looking across at her. “Maybe I
couldn’t do it. But my mother want-
ed me to, awfully. My mother was
the finest horsewoman in America.”
He grew shy after that, and got up
and walked back and forth across the
terrace.
“Things never broke right for my
mother,” he said, coming to stand be-
side Mrs. van Normand’s chair. “She
wanted me to make the American
team. But I guess Ill have to forget
about that. Polo is a rich man’s
game.”
When he had gone, Connie van Nor-
mand sent for her friend and prime
. minister, Pell Atherton. He came at
once.
“Pell,” said Mrs. van Normand, her
voice cold with concentration, “ex-
plain to me about Tommy’s polo. 1
want to get this straight. Is he as
good as they say he is? You've
played in England and on Long Is-
land. You ought to know.”
“He's the best I've ever seen,” said
Pell.
“Why don’t they give him horses?”
“Why should they?” ;
Mrs van Normand sat very still, her ;
eyes on the toe of one black and sil- |
ver slipper. “How,” she said at last, !
“does cne go about buying polo-pon-
ies?”
Pell Atherton gave her a sharp and |
slightly amused glance. “There are |
a number of ways. I can handle it |
for you, if you like.” |
“How many ponies ought a man to |
have 7” :
“Eight or ten—eight, anyway.”
“I want,” said Mrs. van vind,
and the way she said the two words |
conveyed the instant impression that |
she was accustomed to get what she’
wanted, “I want the ten best polo- |
ponies money will buy. I want the
best string you can get together. Nev-
er mind the cost. Get ’em.”
Pell Atherton got them.
Among them was a coldbred nam-
ed Dutch, who had cost twenty-five
housand dollars and who was said to
know more polo than any other horse
in the country.
And the rivalry from that time
forth was never really between Mrs.
van Normand and Sybil Raynes, as
most people thought, but between
Dutch and Sybil.
Sybil and Dutch came into Tommy
Sherdel’s life at about the same time.
Dutch came first.
Mrs. van Normand asked Tommy :
to play the pony to see how good he
really was. Tommy played him once
at Santa Barbara and then took him
to Coronado for a series of three
tournament games. When they came
back Tommy was as utterly lost as a
man can be. For Dutch knew more
about polo than Tommy did. He was
the perfect polo-pony, the one Tommy
had dreamed about, the one he and his
mother had planned for and talked
about. He was past master of the
game. Moreover, he was very wise
and gentle and had a sense of humor,
and recognized Tommy instantly as
the man-god to whom he had been
waiting to belong.
Tommy loved Dutch with all his
heart. He loved him as such men do
sometimes love a horse or a dog, with
a love second only to that which they
give the one woman or the first-born
child.
He liked the other horses Mrs. van
Normand had bought and wanted him
to ride. They were great ponies. But
Dutch he loved.
As for Sybil Raynes, Tommy met
her at Mrs. van Normand’s at a small
dinner-party.
Now Mrs. van Normand wasn’t en-
tertaining much that season and her
parties were noticeable, according to
her enemies of whom she had plenty,
all of them women—for the absence
of young and pretty girls. Connie
van Normand, they said, was no fool. | pf
She wasn’t taking any chances.
The mere fact that Sybill was there,
brought by some young married cou-
sins, argued that the wasn’t consid-
ered pretty.
But—this happens every now and
then—she reminded Tommy Sherdel
of his mother.
Sybil Raynes hadn’t specially want-
ed to come to Mrs. van Normand’s
dinner-party. :
“I’d much rather stay home and
read,” she said to her cousin, when
the royal command was conveyed to
her.
“Don’t be silly,” said her cousin
sharply. “Mrs. van Normand is the
most important person in Santa Bar-
bara. And you'll probably meet Tom-
my Sherdel there.”
“She isn’t important to me,” said
Sybil, with a slight grin. “And who
is Tommy Sherdel 7”
When told, her brown eyes show-
ed a flicker of interest.
“But I'd much rather see him on a
polo field than in a drawing-room,”
she said. “Most men you adore when
they are playing polo or football are
a fearful disappointment.”
Her cousin stared at her disapprov-
ingly. That was no way for a plain
girl like Sybil to talk. “Have you
anything fit to wear ?” she asked cold-
ly.
ully. “I never have. But it doesn’t
matter. I look just as bad dressed up.”
Nevertheless, when Tommy Sherdel
saw her standing there in her dowdy
little dinner frock, without jewels and
with no make-up except a little rice
powder on her nose, he was stopped
by a sudden sweet pang, as at some
remembered melody or some old, dear
fragrance ;
Sybil Raynes had brown curls all
over her head—they were her one
beauty—and she had a funny brown
little face and a certain brightness in
her laugh. Also, she had come. very
recently from Georgia, and though
many people couldn’t understand her
at all, her talk was music to Tommy.
Tommy, being rather slow of
thought and action except on the polo
field, had no idea that he had fallen
in love at first sight. He only knew
that he carried home a high fear that
sang in his breast all that night, and
that when he finally got to sleep he
saw this girl, whom he had met but
once, holding out her arms to him
across a golden sea. And he woke
with his heart thumping as it did
after a hard ride on the polo field.
It was several days before he
thought of calling her up. He kept
hoping he would see her. Santa Bar-
bara isn’t such a big place, and he
took to walking up and down its
charming main street, glancing quick-
ly at every woman who appeared.
But though he saw all the rest of
ferminine Santa Barbara, he didn’t see
er.
When he called up, she sounded
glad to heap from him. It never oc-
curred to Tommy Sherdel that nearly
every girl in Santa Barbara had giv-
en him every chance to call her up.
He didn’t care for girls and now he
had all the true lover’s humility.
As for going riding with him as he
suggested, that she couldn’t do. The
nurse was out and she was takng care
of Pat and Junior. But if he cared
to come out and play on the beach
with them, he might. The house was
beyond Montecito, just off the high-
way, a rambling white-stucco affair
with a thatched shingle roof and
bright blue trimmings.
Tommy never forgot the sight of
her as she came across the sand to
meet him, a small and very dirty boy
in a bathing suit clinging to each
hand. She looked much younger than
she had looked in Mrs. van Normand’s
stately drawing-room, and she was
laughing so hard she could scarcely
greet him. She had a way with chil-
dren.
When her cousins returned, the
four of them were blissfully digging
clams, in open defiance of a law which
says clams must be allowed to grow
‘up before they may be digged.
“Well,” said the male cousin brusk-
ly, “Sybil turned you into a nurse-
maid ?”’
“Have you, Sybil?” said Tommy.
“U-mmm,” said Sybil.
“Don’t go, Tommy,” said Pat and
Junior in chours.
Now there was very little that went
on in Santa Barbara that Connie van
Normand didn’t know about. Her
friends did not fail to appraise her of
Tommy’s visit to the little Raynes
grl, and when he took her, on the fol-
lowing evening, to Santa Barbara's
very best picture show, they reported
the matter without delay. And Con-
nie van Normand, estimating affairs
through half-closed eyes, moved in-
stantly into battle.
The next afternoon she drove Tom-
my out to the stables where her horses
were kept and together they made
| the rounds, ending with Dutch, who
i greeted his master with every mark
of adoration known to a horse.
Mrs. van Normand had never look-
ed so dashing in all her life. She had
left waste and destruction behind her,
in the shape of two hysterical maids
and a devastated dressing-room. but
the results were worth it. Oh, a
very dashing lady in a sport suit of
some subtle shade of green, with a
sable collar that rolled up over the
chin in just the smartest and most
flattering way, and a cream sport hat
whose mere simple lines cost more
than a. bird of paradise. The cunning
little sport sandals with the enormous
heels had been created especially for
her. Her gauntlets had cuffs of bright
silver and around her tiny ankle, un-
der her sheer stockings, she wore the
most fetching slave-bracelet of em-
eralds.
“Aren't they a pretty good string ?”
she said.
“They're marvelous,” said Tommy
Sherdel, stroking the nose of Dutch,
eo was rooting in his pocket for car-
rots. EE
“What do you suppose I bought
them for?” she asked, with cool di-
rectness.
Young Sherdel looked at her. He
had been wondering.
“They ought to be played at the in-
ternational tryouts next month,” said
rs. van Normand, her eyes on his.
“Do you want to take them ?”
Tommy Sherdel flushed hotly,
darkly. Partly with excitement, part-
ly with some new embarassment caus-
ed by the directness of her gaze. He
towered above her, and Mrs. van Nor-
mand found her heart beating hard,
harder than she liked, for he was so
young and strong and slim, and she
loved his wide-open blue eyes in his
dark face, and the sunburned edges
of his hair, and—oh, she really loved
him terribly!
That made it more difficult than she
had anticipated.
“Do you want them ?” said Mrs. van
Normand, and just then Dutch gave
a low whinny, as though he felt he
was not getting his share of attention.
Tommy Sherdel was silent, startled.
He knew now that something unusual
was actually happening. The air was
tense with it. This woman’s eyes
were hot with emotion.
“I got them for you,” said Mrs. van
Normand.
“But—I couldn’t take such a gift,”
said Tommy gravely.
Mrs. van Normand knew how to
drive a bargain. And she knew the
moment when cards must be laid on
the table.
“You could take such a gift from—
from your wife, couldn’t you, Tom-
my ?” she said breathlessly.
the whole tale of his polo ambitions puProbably not,” said _ Sybil cheer- | The boy’s face had gone white be-
neath his tan. ya
Dutch whinnied again, softly,
pleadingly. The lilac bushes near the
gravel walk gave out a sweet per-
fume. The sound of things buzzing
filling the. air.
He stared at her.
Then Connie van Normand laughed,
and put her hand on his arm and gave
it a quick squeeze. Connie never re-
fused any of the jumps. She was in
this now, she would see it through to
the last ditch.
“I'm proposing to you, my dear
boy,” she said impudently. “I know
it isn’t done, but that never stopped
me doing anything. Moreover, I am
trying quite cpenly and shamelessly
to bribe you with a string of polo-
ponies, and a chance to devote your
life to the game. It’s a sort of re-
versal of the old days when rich gen-
tlemen induced young girls to marry
them for their money. The world’s
upside down nowadays, anyway. I
am actually trying to get you to mar-
ry me for money, Daring, but—I
think you're a little fond of me, too,
and we could have such a lot of fun
and I—I adore you, Tommy. I do
really.”
He found himself alone, after that.
There was the hum of a motor, and
a flash of a small and very elegant
town car and of a lady in green going
away from him, her sparkling face
framed in the little jewel-like window.
She even waved a green and silver
gauntlet at him, and grinned, but not
very steadily.
He found himself alone with the
perfume of the lilacs beating sicken-
ingly in his nostrils, like waves of
ether as a man comes out from an
anesthetic. She had said something,
during the conversation, about think-
ing it over.
He thought it over all night. He
walked his room and the perspiration
stood out on his brow.
Gosh, what a position for a man to
in!
Seemed simple enough at first, but
it wasn’t so simple, really. There
were so many angles.
Now that he had been forced to it,
he knew that he loved Sybil. But he
had no reason to believe that she
loved him, and even if she did, what.
had he to offer her? Literally noth-
ing but himself and his love, and he
wasn’t conceited enough to think that
was much of an offer.
Then there was Connie van Nor-
mand. Had he been fair to her? Had
she believed that he—loved her? Had
she believed he couldn’t speak, be-
cause of her great wealth?
Things came back to him now—
idiot that he was—things she had said
about a rich woman being denied
happiness if the man she loved hap-
pened to be poor.
He liked Connie. She had actually
asked him to marry her. And every-
thing kind and chivalrous and tender
in the boy shrank from inflicting the
hurt of a refusal. That would be
a tough thing for a woman to take.
Besides, he was tempted, horribly
tempted in a way. No use to deny
that. No use to pretend that he was
unmoved by this offer she had made
him. He thought of having all the
money he wanted for polo, of that
string she had got together, he
thought of Dutch. He thought of the
game, which had been his first and for
many years only love. If he married
Connie van Normand, he could devote
his life to it. She was a good pal,
Connie.
“What shall I do?” said Tommy
Sherdel wretchedly, in the dawn.
After all, if she loved him, it was a
fair bargain.
Then he groaned. He was thinking:
of Dutch. Because if he said no to
this startling proposal, he would
never ride Dutch again. He would
have to give up polo. Gosh, what
would life be like without polo?
He balanced them, very humanly,
voung and haggard, in a pearly, fog-
laden dawn.
On one side, a plain girl with
brown curls—whom he loved and who
might some day grow to love him.
And on the other polo, and Dutch,
and jhe fascinating Connie van Nor-
mand.
Not the simplest choice in the world.
And then, quite suddenly, for no
reason at all, he had a vision of his
mother. He couldn’t see her very
clearly, her face and body were, hig-
den in a mist. Only her eyes were
clear and brave. He had seen that
same expression in them the morning
Ravenwood’s great colt died—brave
and clear and without tears in the face
of defeat.
Polo had been her game. She had
taught him to play it and love it. He
must do now what he knew she would
want him to do.
First of all, it being now daylight,
he went down to the stables where
Dutch was kept. He was there a
long time.
Then he went up to Connie van
Normand’s great house, amid its
acres of marvelous gardens and
groves of live-oak trees.
She kept him waiting quite a long
time, but she had made good use of it.
“Please take good care of Dutch,”
said Tommy Sherdel simply. “He's
the best polo-pony in the world.”
“Am I to take it that you are re-
jecting my heart and hand?” said
Connie.
Tommy took her hand and kissed
it.
“Gosh, I'm sorry,” he said, and
left the lady with her ninety million
dollars and eyes that for the first
time in her life were utterly blind
with tears.
The house by the sea was shutter-
ed and silent. But Tommy rang the
bell violently. A man can stand just
so much
“It’s terribly early,” he said, when
the gir] came out, “but I've been up
all night.”
“Haye you?” said Sybil Raynes in-
terestedly. .
“Sybil,” said Tommy Sherdel, in
the most commonplace manner, with-
out iny frills at all, unless the throb
in his voice and the light in his eves
and the tenseness of his whole fine
body might be called frills by a young
girl in a sea-scented veranda, “do von
think you could ever love me and if
(Continued on page 3, Col. 5.)