'y Pa Copyright by Harper & Brothers —— FOREWORD. “The Thirteenth Com- mandment” is an American story written by an Ameri- can for Americans. It is, according to a famous Eng- lish critic, “American to the bone and to the marrow of the bone.” It deals with that eternal conflict be- tween finance and romance. It tells the story of what one lovable, modern American girl did when she discovered how often the checkbeok’s groan drowns the love song. In this story Rupert Hughes is at his best, and that best cannot be surpassed by any American author of the present day. If you start “The Thirteenth Command- ment” you will finish it, and when you have finished it you will be glad that you started it. CHAPTER L we As usual nowadays, instead of knocking at the door Fate called up on the telephone, Though the bell shrilled almost in Mrs, Kip's ear she would not answer it. She winced, shook her head, agi- tated her rocking chair with petulance, embroidered vindictively, and hardly so much called sighed very loudly toward the hallway: “Daphne! ©O-oh, Daphne! the tele- phone again!” On the stairs there sounded a muffled scurry like the rush an April shower chased down a hillside by the sun. An allegory of April dart- od across the room and raised the tel- to her lips as if it were a beaker of good cheer. Her mother was used to this humor of Daphne's and paid no heed till a sudden frost chilled the warm tone of the girl's voice. The smile of hospi- tality wasted on the telephone had given place to a look of embarrass- ment, Mrz. Kip whispered anxiously, “Who : it" Daphne motioned her not to inter rupt, and her voice grew deep and nportant. It became what her brother Bayard called her “reception voice." In her grandest contralto she said: “This is Miss Kip. Yes, I have, Yes, Lie does. I beg pardon? Oh!—Oh! Oh! low do you do, Mr. Wmbwm,"” “Mr. Who?" her mother keened. Daphne whispered to quiet her, “A young man from New York-—friend of Payard's—same office, I haven't got iis name yet" Into the telephone she was saying, and bowing and nodding the while vith her politest face. “Indeed PII try to be. Of course Cleveland's not New York, but— Jy the way, do you dance? That's good. That's right; might as well be deaf if you don't! out as of ephone come out here and have tea with us this very afternoon. IH call for you at the hotel in my little car. No; it's not one of those; it's an electric. I ron it myself, Afraid to risk it? rave man! I'l be there in fifteen winutes, and yop might be on the steps. Goodby, Mr. Wmbwm."” This last was said in the fond tone of ancient friendship, anYl sheehung up the receiver with a gesture like shaking hands, She turned to find her mother thin- ning her lips in a long, tight line; har cheeks bulged explosively. Daphne forestalled her: “Ile's a young fellow in the same firm as Bayard, Says he's here on business for ten days. Bayard told him to call me up and tell me to be nice to him. That sounds like By. Also sald he hadn't time to write. That sounds liker still. Bayard told” him to kiss you for him, so he must be all right. I was going to tale him to the hotel to a tea-dance, but I thought I'd better give him a look-over first. 80 T'Il roll him out here, Get out the nice china and the napkins I mono grammed, and—" “But, Daphne! Wait! I can't" “I haven't time to argue with you, mamma. Please do as I tell you for once, and don’t fuss. Mr. Wmbwm will probably have a lot of news to tell you about your prodigal son. G'hy 1” She popped a kiss on the forehead that anxiety had turned to corduroy and ran upstairs like another April shower chasing the sun uphill. She dashed down again with hat and gloves, and, with nose repowdered, slammed the front door gayly, thrummed the steps, and strode across [the long lawn to the little electric car 5 standing under the porte cochere, The car was very large for a beetle but pretty small for an automobile, CHAPTER IL The night train from New York had deposited Clay Wimburn in the grimy cavern of the station at an early hour, He had dawdled over his breakfast, feeling lost without his New York morning papers. When at last it grew late enough to telephone for an appointment with the man he had come to see he was dis- gusted to learn that the wretch would not be visible till the next day. It was then that Bayard Kip's part- ing behest to eall “up his sister re- curred to Wimburn. He planned to compose a formal note of self-intro- duction, but Bayard had forgotten to tell him his sister's name or his fa. ther's Initials. There were several Kips in the telephone book, and he could not tell which would be which, He decided to call up each number and ask a maid or somebody If Mr. Bayard Kip's people lived there, The very first number he called brought Daphne herself suddenly voice to voice with him. Voices are characters, and it was a case of love at first hearing with him. She had him smiling and cooing at the second phrase,” He felt that she was going to make his stay in Cleveland pleasant. He formed all sorts of pictures of her while he waited on the hotel steps, but when she stepped out of her car and looked about she was none of the | Misses Kip he had planned, She was a round, pretty little thing, amiable | of eye and humorous about the lips, and cunningly dressed. She looked as if she would be a plucky, tireless | sportswoman ; yet she had a wistful, | tender huggableness that a girl ought not to lose, however well she plays tennis, . “Is this Mr.—" she began. He was too nervous to notice her pause, He retorted, “Is this Miss Kip?” He noted that she shook hands well, with a boyish clench accompanied by an odd little duck of the head, “Mighty nice of you to take me off this desert island,” he beamed. “Mighty glad to have the privilege,” she said as she verified the fraternity pin on his overcoat. “Mother is dy- ing to hear how Bayard is." Mothers have little power left as guardians, but the children find that the title has a certain value at times in keeping order. “Won't you get In?" sald Daphne, | pointing to her car. She made him crowd in first, then followed and | closed the door and pulled the throttle: | He meditated aloud: “How wonder- ful it really is that you should talk to me over the telephone and invite me to your home and come and get me like this,” “What's so wonderful about that?” | sald Daphne. “Everybody does it." “Everything that everybody does is | wonderful,” said Wimburn. “But how | city where there are no walls about | the gardens. Look! there aren't even | fences, The lawns are all joined to- I Is Hi "A 4 ? 12] iW HE s — -— a Fe 27 Already Wimburn Was a Member of the Household. gether and the houses are mostly win. dows. Everything is so open and free, full of sunlight and frankness. You're taking me home in this charming little glass showosse to introduce me to your mother, I tell you the world do move! A woman of today has a lot to be thankful for. You ought to be mighty happy.” “Ought-to-be hasn't much to do with Ja.” Daphne sighed. “We've got a lot to get yot—and a lot to get rid of.” ' He sank back discouraged. The gex was still insatiable. After a short ride they turned Into a driveway leading through a spacious expanse of grass dotted with trees and shrubs, to a homelike house without beauty or ugliness~a house that had +b The only ostentations She led him Into the house and “Mother, we're home.” “Yes, dear,” sald Mrs. “dear” Kip, before who com- “Mother,” sald Daphne, “I want to She Her mother shocked her by saying, to meet you, Mr— I Daphne blushed for her mother's “I am Mr, Wimburn, Mrs. Kip—~Clay At this moment a tall, shambling man walked In. He looked as if he looked older than he was. His spec- tacles overwhelmed a rather unsue Daphne hardly needed Wimburn a name now, and he felt called upon to explain his incur. “I know your son Bayard very well, We belong to the We struck up a great friend- ship. When he knew I was coming to be nice to you! and—and-—" ment before the ballroom manner of Mrs, Kip, but the pompous disguises why: * “Daphne told me. He to kiss his mother for him.” “Yeo-03." “Well, I am his mother” “Oh! BMay IT “Will you? He pressed his lips respectfully on her cheek, but she, closing her eyes to imagine him her son, flung her fat arms about him and held him a mo- ment. He kissed her again with a kind of vicarious devotion, “I'd want Bayard to deliver such a messy to your mother,” she ex. plained, Already Wimbura was a member of the household: he had been kissed and sympathized with. He turned to Daphne with an apolo- petic look und saw that she was slar- ing at him with softer eyes than he or ge for tea had come in tottering on a tray carried by a panicsmitten cook, as agile as a hippopotamus and as shy as a violet, Daphne and her mother and father went through the tea ceremony with the anxiety of people In an if the tea bibbers were drinking poi. son and she watching for the coanvul- Clay Wimburn talked altogether abaut Bayard and his wonderful prog- ress in business in spite of the hard times. Bayard, he sald, was sticking to his desk like a demon, and he let noth- ing distract him. “It must be glorious living in New York,” Daphne sighed. “Why don’t you come and pay Bay- ard a visit? Wimburn suggested, “ke wouldn't have time to take me anywhere, and I don't know anybody else there” “You know me. And I'd be only too glad to try to repay your hospitality to me." Mrs. Kip looked on and listened with the fond alarm of one who has seen fatal courtships begun with just such fencing. ’ When at length Daphne suggested that there was still time to rush down to the Hotel Statler for a dance or two Mrs. Kip smiled at her. Wimburn did not know that he had been brought home on approval, Mrs, Kip realized that he was not to be returned as im- possible. Her fancy gambled in fu- tures. Wimburn was the victim of an onset of that delirium amans known as love at first sight. He was at the right age, and he found something exotically captivating In this strange girl in the strange city, He was poisoned with love, and his opinion of Dapline was lunatically fantastic. No one in the world equaled her. No, one ever had equaled her or could equal her in any future ever. Spring and love are the perennial miracles, always new, always amazing. It was springtime In Wimburn's years and in the calendar of the world; and countless other youth of mankind, ani mal kind, bird and fish kind, flowers and fruit trees, and perhaps of chem- feals In the ground were feeling the same mania. : Daphne's cordiality was merely the hospitable warmth of her caught the fever from Wimburp and decided that he was the final word in human evolution. . They began to dread the soclety of squatter population on their private planet. The world was too much with them, The little car was transparent. Even at night etiquette required therh to light it up within. Wimburn did not return to New York so soon as he expected, It seemed impossible to uproot himself from that pleasant soll. One after- noon when he had already overstayed his furlough Daphne and he were rid- ing in the little car through the outer suburb known as Shaker Heights—a section rapidly evolving from a sleepy religious community toa swarm of city residences, The late afternoom moon had risen in a sky still rosy with the afterglow of sunset. The air was murmurous with pleading. Suddenly Wimburn eried aloud, to his own surprise and hers, “Daphne! Miss Kip! [I can't stand everything, you know! I'm only human, after all.” “What's the matter?’ she asked in prosaic phrase but with a poetic flut- ter of breath, “1 love you, d———n it!—pardon me, tbut I'm infernally In love with you. I came here on busi- and instead of my finisMng it you've finished me, I'm two days over due New York and I've had to lie to the office to explain why. And all {I can think of now Is that I'd rather resign and starve to death than go back and leave you here.” “Honestly?” she barely breathed. “Desperately !” he moaned, “What's { to become of me?" “You'd better back, I suppose, | You'll soon get over it and find some- body ol ness, in 20 s¢ to love” worth loving. I'd die if I gave you up! I'd simply die He went with | “Could you eare for me just a If you try te, 1 ah on could face my exile { the ever? She and sizhed, “1 gues The mir tion overwh her in 1} about I do now.” lous felicity of this situa- wi them both, He elipt and flung forgetting entirely The neglected little scuttered off the road, gu into a vacant lot, 4 up a “For Sale” to tip over into an excavalion Daphne looked up long enough to shut off the power. Then in a blind rapture she returned to where she be i ~his embrace, rms she him, steering tter when longed Soon she was assailed with fears for the credibility of this wonder work, and when he said: “When shall we announce our en gagemeut?’ she protested: “Oh, not till we are sure.” “Tm sure pow." =~ | “But we must be terribly sure. | such ried. It's a dangerous thing, getting mar- So many people who think they love each other find out their mistake too late. You don't know me very well” “You mean you don't know me very well” “I'm not afraid of you, but for you. I'd hate to disappoint you, and I don’t really amount to much, I can't do gnything except gad around ; and you'd tire of me." “Not in this world—nor in the next.” “It's darling of you to say it, and you think you mean it-—-now. But—" *] know it, Daphne, honey, now and forever. 1 don't want anybody but you. Life won't be life without you. You've promised to be my wife, I hold you to your promise.” “All right.” It was exceedingly sat- fsfying to surrender her soul into his keeping. She had reached harbor al- ready after so brief anfl placid a voy- age. He ended a long, cozy silence with the surprising remark, “I suppose I ought to ask your parents’ consent?” The daughter of the twentieth cen- tury laughed: “Parents’ consent! You do read a lot of ancient literature, don't you?” “Still 1 imagine we'd better break it to ‘em.” “You leave it to me to break it to ‘em. They'll be glad enough to get me off their hands” “I'll never believe that” * When they reached her home it was jate and his hotel was so far that, since he would be spending his last evening with her, anyway, she asked him to stay to dinner, She broke that news to her parents, and it caused them acute distress. Her father and her mother were deep in the battle that always broke out be« tween them when the monthly bills ar- rived. Daphne was so used to this that she hardly noticed it. that his hotel bill would require all of his funds except enough for the por ter's tip and a few odd dollars, He could not buy Daphne an engage. ment ring with a few odd dollars, and he was afrald to leave her without the brand of possession on her finger. But how was he to come at the nee essary sum? He could not decently ask the firm he was dealing with to lend him money, He might have asked it to eash a check on his bank, but hs account was at the irreducible mid- imum, After an hour or two of meditation extension of credit. on the velvet beaches till he represent his exquisite adoration. went in and asked the price, tag and asnoounced the prioe—8$I185, It was not much for a solitaire, but it was too much for that bachelor. He clung and in credit asked for the to a tone wis a husky man. He escorted wor, or pa “| Have the Honor to Be Engaged to Miss Daphne Kip" person gazed out at enough to buy jewelry. Fe ople Mr. and of shyness toward credit, Wimburn hemmed and blushed and swallowed hard, of a pickpocket he mumbled as he “I am Mr, Wimburnh of New York city. Clay with one of your big mills, dow-—rather pretty littie thing. Took a fancy to it. it. and—" : Mr. Gassett walted with patience. gsk you to give me credit. But I'm very anxious to leave the ring here™ “Leave it here! 1 thought you want. ed to buy it!” “Of course! 1 want to leave it on the finger of a young lady.” “Oh” sald Mr. Gassett, to whom ladies’ fingers were an important mar ket, Finally he sald: “I don’t suppose you would care to tell me who your flancee ig. That might make a dif- ference.” “Why shouldn't I tellsyon? I'm cer tainly mot ashamed to. I have the honor to be engaged to Miss Daphne Kip.” Daphne, accompanied by her mother, goes to New York for the purpose of buying her trous. seau. There the first shadow is cast upon Daphne's romantic dreams by the discovery that the money which her father has been able to raise for the pur. pose will not buy much of a trousseau. Don't miss the next * installment. (TO BE CONTINUED.) # TEA TO .DARKEN HAIR She mixed Sulphur with it to Re. store Color, Gloss, Youth. fulness. Common garden sage brewed into a heavy tea with sulphur added, will turn gray, streaked and faded hair beautifully dark and luxuriant, Just a few applications will prove a reveia- tion If your hair is fading, streaked og gray. Mixing the Bage Tea and Sui phur recipe at home, though, is trou. blesome., An easier way is to get a bottle of Wyeth's Bage and Sulphur Compound at any drug store all ready for use, This {8 the oldtime recipe improved by the addition of other ine gredients, While wispy, gray, faded halr is not sinful, we all desire to retain our youthful appearance and attractive. ness. 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