SYNOPSIS.
—
Sheridan's attempt to make a business
man of his son Bibbs by starting him in
the machine shop ends in Bibby going to
a sanitarium, a nervous wreck. On his re-
turn Bibbs 1s met at the station by his
sister Edith.
siderable and unconsidered figure
“New House" of the Sheridans. He
Mary Vertrees looking at him from a
summer house next door. The Vertreeses,
old town family and impoverished, call on
the Sheridans, newly-rich, and afterward
discuss them. Mary puts into words her
parents’ unspoken wish that e marry
one of the Sheridan boys.
FOTO TO TATOO TOTTI TOTO TOTO TOT TOOT TOTO
> 4
in the
sie
xX)
Here is a young woman, one
of the poor aristocrats, deliber
ately setting forth to capture a
rich husband. Perhaps Mary
will honestly fall in love with
Jim Sheridan and be happy in
her marriage. Do you think she
is waging her “warfare” in a
manner that will bring her suc-
cess?
4
eee
NN
LS ETO eee eee
CHAPTER V.
It was a brave and lustrous banquet;
and a noisy one, too, because there was
4n orchestra among some plants at one
end of the long dining
a preliminary stiffness
impelled to
the tops of their voices. The
company of fifty sat reat oblong
table, a continent of damask and lace,
with shores of crystal and silver run
>
a
»
-
NN
LOLOL
b
It
the guests were
converse-—necessarily
at ag
and lilies and
ited continent, evidently
were three marvel!
ings” one in the cen
end, white miracle
inspired craftsman
They were models
they represented
ing, the Sheridan
pump works, Nearly
white r
inhab
there
Se8 in
told what they
the likenesses superb
The arrangement of the
visibly baronial. At the
great Thane, with the
family and of th guests
Lae
were, and pron
table
head
flower
sat
of his
about him;
of the “old” house, ug down to
vassals and retainers- srintendents,
cashiers, heads of departments, and the
like—at the foot,
iady took her place as a consolation for
the less important. Here,
the thralls and bondn
Sheridan, a meek
how anybody could look at him and
eat.
Nevertheless, there was a vast,
tinuous eating and the talk went on
with the eating, incessantly It rose
over the throbbing of the orchestra and
where the
too, an
'n, sat Bibbs
con
china and glass, and there
mighty babble.
And through the interstices
clamoring Bibbs
tinual booming of his
voice, and once he caught
“Yes, young lady, that's just what did
it for me, afd that's 11 do it
for my boys—they got make two
blades o' grass grow where one grew
before!” It was his miliar flourish,
an old story to Bibbs, and now jovially
declaimed for the edification of Mary
Vertrees,
It was a great night for Sheridan
the very crest of his wav His big.
smooth, red face grew more and more
radiant with good will and with
simplest, happiest, most boyish vanity
He was the plcture of health, of good
cheer, and of power on a holiday
He dominated the
jocnlar questions and
everyone. His idea that
people were having a good time they
were noisy: and his own additions to
the Lubbub Increased
and, of course, en
couragement from his guests. He kept
time to the music continually—witl
his feet, or pounding ]
his fist, and sometimes with or
knife upon his plate or with
out permitting these side-products to
interfere with the real business of eat-
ing and shouting.
“Tell 'em to play ‘Naney Lee! he
wottld bellow down the length of the
table to his wife, while the musicians
were in the midst of the “Toreador”
song, perhaps. “Ask that fellow If
they don't know ‘Nancy Lee'!” And
when the leader would shake his head
Was
of this
ie
could hear tl
father’s heavy
oon
the sentence
Just what
io
¢
©
table, shouting
rallleries at
wns when
his pleasure,
met the warmest
i
on the table with
|poon
n glass,
dor” continuing vehemently, Sheridan
would roar half-remembered fragments
of “Nancy Lee” naturally
some Diet with the air of that uxori-
ous tefHile,
No extornal bubbling contributed to
this effervescence; the Sheridan's table
find never borne wine, and, more be
cause of timidity about it than convie-
tion, it bore none now. And certain.
iy no wine could hare Inspiréd more
turbulent good spirits in the host. Not
even Bibbs was an alloy in this night's
happiness, for, as Mrs. Sheridan had
sald, he had “plang for Bibbs"-—plans
Swhileh were going to straighten out
wome things that had goue wrong,
Ho he ponoded the table and boomed
fils echoes of old songs, and then, for
getting these, would renew his friend.
ly railleries, or perhaps, turning to
Mary Vertrees, who sat near him,
round the corner of the table at his
right, he would become autoblograph-
teal. Gentlemen naive than
had paid her that tribute, for she was a
girl who inspired the autoblographical
impulse in every man who met her—it
needed but the sight of her,
The dinner seemed, somehow, t
ter about Mary Vertrees and the jocund
host as a about its
and heroine; they were the rubicund
king and the starry princess of
spectacle-——they paid court to each oth
er, and everybody pald court to them,
Down near the pump
where Bibbs sat,
speculation and admiration.
who that lady is
with the old man.” “Must
i “Heiress? Golly, I ¢ I
to marry rich, then
Sibyl radiant;
watched Miss Vertre
ard anxiety, won
effect Sheri
and
less
0 cen
play centers hero
this
sugar works,
audible
“Wonder
hit
ne
there was
makin’ such a
o he se
ould stand 3.
Edith and
they ha
were
d
wt hagg
first
n alm
dering what disastrous
dan's pastoral other
guveties
things- ild have upon her, but she
wot
ighted with everything, and
treated
foull
wost of all, She
ne delicious
deed,
right
“I hope
ee
you're very susceptible, Mr
Sheridan
Honest
ind, “Why?
say
She repeated the look iy,
which was noted, with a mystification
equal to his own, by his sister ac
the table, No reflected Edith,
could imagine Mary Vertrees the sort
of girl who would “really 1irt™ with
men-—she was obviously the
“opposite of all that” Edith
thoroughbred,” a “nice gi
and the look to Roscoe was
SAW
0
another whom
.. 3
5,
on
loscoe was taken aba
was all he managed
“"
deliberat
ross
one,
defiged '
rl
ily
as
it, t
ns h
siVEen
Roscoe's wife Wy,
and she was it puzzled
though not because its recipient was
“Be anid
plying to Roscoe's
anse!™ Mary Vertrees, re
monosyilable, “And
we're next-door neighbors
it's dull times ahead for
i n't get ry
both of
» .
LORD
stocks
hat when a man
brought up to be
married be “married and settled down.”
Th ros
He Pounded the Table and Boomed
His Echoes of Oid Songs.
:
!
might have friendships, like his wife's |
for Lamborn; but 8ibyl and Lamhorn |
never “flirted” —-they were nlways very |
matter-of-fact with each other. Roscoe |
would have been troubled if Sibyl had |
ever told Lamborn she hoped he was
susceptible, .
“Yes—we're neighbors,” he sald,
awkwardly. “I live across the street.” |
“Why, no!” she exclaimed, and!
seemed startled. “Your mother toid
me this afternoon that you lived at
home.” Slowly a deep color came into
her cheek.
“No,” he sald; “my wife and I lived
with the old folks the first year, but
that's all. Edith and Jim live with
them, of conrse.”
“I--1 see,” she sald, the deep color
still, deepening as she turned from him |
i
i
i
“Mr. James Sheridan, Jr.” And from
that moment Roscoe had little enough
reply to her disturbing coquetries.
Mr. James Sheridan had
give a bachelor a chance. “Old Ros.
"
coe
the family.
boasted, both brothers were “capable,
hard-working young business men.”
breadth or depth of the father. Both
and either could have sat for the tallor-
wearing “rich dark mix-
tures.”
Jim, approving warmly of his neigh-
bor's profile, perceived her access of
color, which increased his approba-
tion. “What's that old Roscoe saying
to you, Miss Vertrees?’' he asked,
“These young married men are mighty
suitings in
'em make you biush.”
“Am [I blushing?’ she sald.
you sure?’ And with that gave
Lim ample opportunity to make sure,
repeating with Interest the
upon “I think
must be mistaken,” she continued.
think it's your brother who is blush-
ing. I've thrown him into confusion.”
“How?
or
s
she
1 In
100K
wasted toscoe, you
She laughed, and then, leaning to him
n little, sald
could
in a tone
make it,
the “By trying to begin with
him a courtship I meant for you!”
This might well be new
He supposed it a
m of badinage, and yet
took his breath. Ie realized that b
sald to t + literal
Was ins
as confidential
t und
a8 R’i ”
1 er cover of
u
n
Oo
a style
a
what she
and
it reall
“By George!”
you're the kind
anything
[OO
suared by
ration
said. “1
girl that «
¥
Lie
Buess
’
Of ih Bay
Ret with it,
away
She laughed again
Hw ny
ike If you've got a chane
from me!”
“Not o1
beginn!
me like that”
"l
you
{
f
Q
mightn't
think,” she said,
“Well,” said
You're a funny girl!
vity continoed
“lI may not turn
Jim, In simple honesty,
“ t poe
in gir
an Instant
out to be
you."
“So long as you turn out to Be any-
thing at all for me, 1 expect I can
manage to | satisfied.” And with
that, to his own surprise, it was his
whereupon she laughed
we
“Yeu.
wholly
be said, plaintively, not
lacking intuition, “I car
you're the sort of girl that would laugh
the minute you see a man really means
anything!™
*‘Laugh'!™ she cried, gaylyg. “Why,
it might be a matter of life and death!
But if you want tragedy, I'd better put
the at considering the
mistake I made with your brother.”
Jim dazed. She
ttie game of mockery and
with him, but he had
a fiashing danger in it; he |
of
somewhere
could
know this giddy and alluring lady, no
matter how long it pleased her to play
with him. But he mightily wanted her
to keep on playing with him
“Put what question?” he said, breath
easly
question once,
was seemed to be
nonsense
glimpses of
was but
sed,
too sensible be
afl: had
sciousness that he
ing out-
a
never
clas con-
quite |
“As you arg a new neighbor of mine
of my family,” returned,
speaking slowly and with a cross-ex-
aminer’s severity, 1 think it would be |
well for to know at once whether
you are already walking out with any
Mr. Sheridan, think
you spoken for?"
“Are you?
she eried, and with that they
laughed again; and the pastime
proceeded, increasing both in its gayety
and in ifs gravity.
Observing its continuance, Mr. Rob
ert Lamborn, opposite, turned from a
lively conversation with Edith and re.
marked covertly to Sibyl that Miss. Ver
trees was “starting rather picturesque
ly with Jim.” And he added, languid
she
ne
young i ily or not
Ary
“Not yet,” he gasped
“No!”
both
1
Weill.
ar Yeas y ¥ “ $i: 4 cy v
For the moment Sibyl gave no sign
of !
to swing from her fingers, rest.
lowing with her eyes the twinkle of
damonds and platinum in the clasp at
the end of the loop. She wore many
Jewels, She was pretty, but hers was |
not the kind of prettiness to be loaded
with too sumptuous accessories, and |
jeweled head-dresses are dangerous |
they may emphasize the wrongness of
the wrong wearer. i
“1 sald Miss Vertrees seems to be |
starting pretty strong with Jim," re. |
peated Mr. Lamhorn, ;
“1 heard you.” There was 4 latent
discontent always somewhere in her
oyes, no matter what she threw upon
the surface to cover i, and just now
she did not care to cover it; she looked
sullen. “Starting andy stronger than
you did with Edith?” she inquired,
“Oh, keep the peace!” he said, cross. |
ly. “That's off, or course.”
“You haven't been making her see it’
i"
to her for
“For heaven's
“keep the peace!”
“Well, what have you just been do
Ing?’
“8h!” he
ther-in-law.”
Sheridan was booming and braying
louder than ever,
begun to play “The
vast content.
“I count them
snke,” he
sald. “Listen to your fa-
tosary,” to
over, la-la-tum-tee-
with his fork. “Each hour a
each pearl! tee-dum-tum-dum-——
the matter of all you folks?
pearl,
What's
Why'n't
Miss Vertrees, I bet a thou-
sand dollars you sing! Why'n't
“Mr. Sheridan,” she said, turning
don't know what you
| We could have lived a year on
think the orchids alone would
lasted us a couple of months,
they were, before me, but |
| steal ‘em and sell ‘em, and so
I did what I could!”
She leaned and
suringly to her troubled
seemed to be a guccess—what I could.”
she sald, clasping her hands behind
| her neck and stirring the rocker to mo
tion as a rhythmic secompaniment to
her narrative. “The gir! Edith and her
sister-in-law, Mrs. Roscoe Sheridan,
were too anxious about the effect of
things on me. The father's worth a
hushel of both of them, if he knew it,
He's what he is. 1 Khe
it, |
have
There
couldn't
i
{
back Inughed reas
mother, “It
like "him
but I think he was about to say
thing Important.”
“I'll gay something important to him
doesn't!” the father tened,
more delighted with her than ever
gosh! If I was bis age—o
right now—""
“Oh, wait!” cried Mary. “If
less nolse! | want
to Leg iid
say the
'd tell me 1
couldn't get ahead o' Jim,
if he thre
r a
they'd
Mrs
only make
“She'd same,” he shouted
$
“She was mighty
Sh y slow
Why
I was his age
“You must listen to
Mary interrupted, turnin
had grown red
tell us how, when
made
your father,’
: to Jim, who
again, "He's
’ 1 # v ys 4
He was your
those two blades of grass
and you could
didn't get them
out of a tend
up
YOU sg he out
widan pounded the table
here
“too awful
into ringin
“Both!
{ fe
MIDE
5 1}
ill Oe
Mary Vertrees as
street wateh
Bibbs
what
might
garden
and he knew
iittle girl in a
CHAPTER VIL
for
Mrs. Vertrees “sat up” }
ter, Mr. Vertrees having retived a
restiess evening, not much soothe
the soclety of his Landseers
Vertrees had a long vi
She sat through the slow nig!
in a stiff little chair under the
in her own
the “front hall," There,
she employed the time
own reminiscences, though it
gil of it
it hours
gaslight
directly
book in
in
was her
room, which was
over
her
Remusat's
Her thoughts went
her life and into busband’'s; and
the deeper into the past they went, the
brighter the pictures they bre
and there is tragedy. L
band, she thought
11.0 1
Gia
backward
her
it her
ike her hus
he
ot dare think forward definite
What thinking this t
bled couple veutured took the fo
a slender hope which
backward
Ane
the
5 it
forward rou
revs of
neither
3
Over, aay
after day, from the very hour when
For
of human
their youth wa
days, dead!
“gentility,” and
more straitly
r
HO aul
ly does any ideal
ine an antique
innocent ol
breeding” and
had been
ut
hel
DY
the
®O
no,
Here
in
ence
was marked the most vital «
Mr. and Mma
and their big new neighbor
though his youth of the
epoch, knew nothing of such matters
He had been chopping wood for the
morning fire in country grocery
while they were still dancing
It was after one o'clock when
Vertrees heard steps and the d¢
ciinking of the key the
then, with the ope of
Mary's laugh
afrokd
The door
between
was same
the
Mrs
licate
in and
1 ts
08K,
ss i ¢ 1 i
ning the door,
and, “Yes
tomorrow"
stairs, bringing with her a Breath of
“Yea,” she sald, before Mrs.
home!” -
She let her cloak fall upon the bed,
and, drawing an old red-velvet rocking
chair forward, sat beside her mother,
after giving ber a light pat upon the
shoulder and a hearty kiss upon the
cheek,
“Mamma!” Mary exclaimed, when
Mra, Nertrees had expressed a hope
that she had enjoy®l the evenhg and
had not caught cold, “Why don't you
This InqWry obviously madé her
mother uncomfortable. “I don't" ghe
faltered, “Ask you what, Mary?"
“How 1 got along and what he's
like."
“Mary!”
“Ohi, it isn’t distressing!” sald Mary.
“And 1 got along so fast—" Khe broke
off to laugh; continging then. “But
that's the way I went at it, of course,
We are in a hurry, aren't we?"
“My dear, I don't know what to"
“What to make of anything!” Mary
finished for her. “So that's all right!
Now I'll tell yan all about it. It was
a a
rr RRR
ime we wen?
bound to show thel:
wwhere! Ni
and so did 1.
I treated him
for ti
hat way
1 Rill OVer
lke a guid
EAv
le Bilin’ of
thanoht
IOUKH
¢ dimens
and the wh
if they
$
$
ue
em a present of the
was pou jest of
of
Nat
gs 1
They'd
and fra:
poem
simple
it to
us,
wistful
though
Fas Iho
never written
fter a
sked me to
her house with
Edith and Mr. 1
ian
Mrs
while,
wl Jim Sheri
Vertrees was shocked.
wr a
she exclaimed
“Of course,”
ary please
Mary
a I «
Jr
EL
gaid
for you
James Sheridan,
Ros
were dvi
a8 easy
Mr
there, and Mrs
‘the men | EB
though I noticed that
was the only one near d¢
that account E amd
said they knew | been
if, mamma
We went over
ained that
drink.’
horn
ern
for a
Mr. la
Mrs
bored
dith Roscoe
d at the
¥ pr] >
seemed to
to have a
But 1}
the dinner,
and
were goin
getie about it,
think now we
thes
K
hadn't been bored at
been amused; and the ‘good time’ at
Mrs. Roscoe's was horribly, borribly
stupid.”
“But, Mary,” her mother began, “is
wefg" And she seemed unable to
complete the question,
“Never mind, mamma, I'll say it. 1s
Mr. James Rheridan, Jr, stupid? I'm
sure he's not at all stupid about busi
ness. Otherwise Oh, what right
have 1 to be calling people ‘stupid’ be-
cause they're not exactly my kind?
On the big dinner table they had enor
mous jcing models of the Sheridan
building"
“Oh no!"
iy not!"
“Yes, and two other things of that
kind-<1 don't know what. But, after
all, T wondered If they were so bad.
Well, then, mamma, I managed not to
feel superior to Mr. James Sheridan,
Jr, because he didn’t see anything out
of place In the Sheridan building In
sugar”
Mrs. Vertrees' expression had lost
none of its anxiety and she shook her
“My dear, dear child,”
Mrs, Vertrees cried. “Sure
whe sald, “it seems $0 me
I'm afraid
“Say ns
It looks
*
much of it aw
mamma,” sald Mary, encour
can get it,
keyword.”
“Everyt!
trees began, timidly i“
the alr of It is as if
| Ing toto make yourself
“Oh, 1 see! You mean | sound as if
I were trying to foree myself! to
him.”
“Not
quite
you can,
agingly.
if you'll just give me one
Hng you say.”
Mrs,
to
Ver
have
seek
#11
you were
ike
<%
exactly, Mary That wasa's
what I meant,” said Mrs. Ver
trees, speaking direct untruth with per
fect unconsciousness, Sut you said
that—that you found the later part
of the evening at young Mrs. Sherd
dan's uneéntertaining—"
“And as Mr.
| there, and I saw f hi
| dinner, and had a horribly
{In spite of that, you think 1
it vas Mary
ighed,
Vertrees
ther
James Sheridan was
at
upid time
And
deduye
more o m than
i then who left the
tion
nodded; and though
mo and the daughter up
Mary feit it
understanding
he
aerstood
the
“Well,” she
better to make
definite
nuked, gre ¥. “is there
u and papas
g that dis
is the only
up to we
t's all
youl”
Mary,
it's
Joak
Own
100r she
inst the
thread.
i've
esn’t
’
¥ h
1 he's not.
ned that be
‘well
he Sgweridan
ttle ruefully
ting to talk to
n thee was too much
I didn’t see him aft-
ing wrong
They'd
here weren't.”
they spoke of
tive shop
ust
yoking
t tragie
seemed
infeel
then!
led
was the
roguish-
plessanter
®
“Yes, in-
nough., and
100 good
thed and nodded
Plenty pleasant
ly, if all were known
n for me!”
And when
{ trees drew a
eve
had Mrs. Ver
breath.
| den were off her n
i Iw
she gone
i y £F -«’ ff a 1
long ag if a bur
and, smiling,
sutie reverie.
nd
ii ie
gan to andress in a
CHAPTER VIL
Edith,
ready-made”
glancing casually into the
library, stopped abrupt.
ly. seeing Bibbs there alone. de was
standing before the pearkframed and
| gold lettered poem, musingly inspect.
ing it. He read it
FUGITIVE
I will forget the things that sting:
The lashing look, the barbed word,
1 know the very hands that fling
The stones at me had never stirred
To anger but for their own scars,
They've suffered so, that's why they
wirike.
I'll keep my heart among the stars
Where none shall hunt it. Oh, like
These wounded ones I must not be,
For, wounded, 1 might strike in turn!
80. none ahafl hurt me. Far and free
Where my heart flies no one shall learn.
Edith Sheridan has enough fine
stuff in her soul to write such
verse—even though it was writs
ten when she was seventeen
and now she's past twenty and