SYNOPSIS
James Lambert tries in vain to dissuade
his beautiful foster-daughter Leonora from
marrying Don Mason, young ‘‘rolling stone,
whom he likes but of whom he disapproves
according to his conventional business-man
standards. He tells her, ‘Unless a house
is founded upon a rock, it will not survive
Leonora suspects the influence of her half-
brother Ned, always jealous of the girl
since the day his father brought her home
from the deathbed of her mother, aban-
doned by her Italian baritone lover. Don
arrives in the midst of the argument,
CHAPTER I—Continued
Le
“I've a clean bill cf health, sir.
When I was a kid of nineteen and
carried a message from a wonder-
ful English girl who had stayed at
home because she was going to
have a baby, to her husband sta-
tioned in China (a man, by the way,
whom you'd have been proud to
introduce to Nora), and found the
fellow living with—Well, I won't go
into details; but it gave me a jolt
which wasn't easy to forget. I've
rubbed elbows with a lot that’s sor-
did, Mr. Lambert, but I've hurt no
woman. Balance that, please,
against my depleted bank account.”
“Well, Daddy?” Nera prodded
after a moment.
“This is all very well,”’ responded
James, ‘‘all very commendable; but
it doesn’t change the financial as-
pect of the case. Suppose,’ he said,
turning to Don, ‘‘suppose you per-
suade this girl of mine to marry
you. What assurance can you give
me that, unless I continue to sup-
port her, she won't during the next
hardship?”
“Only this,” said Don, and held
up two strong, browned fists. It
was an argument more eloquent
than words, but the older man re-
fused to see it.
For a moment there was a silence
of the crackling fire and rain beat-
ing against a window at the far end
of the big room. Then James said
quickly, as if to get it over: “I sup-
pose you know that Nora is not my
daughter—I should say, my legal
daughter?”
Don nodded.
“What he means, Don,” explained
Nora, throwing a perfectly amicable
glance to James, *‘‘is that I'm not
entitled to one penny of the Lam-
bert fortune
mind, darling,
tactful chance
fully.”
“I'm still here,”
eyes smiling at her.
Watching the young people, James
stirred uneasily.
“Nora misunderstood me,”
went on. ‘‘She often does, though 1
think she knows I wouldn't be un-
Just to her. If at my death her
brother inherits more than she does,
it’s not because I adopted him le-
gally when 1 married his mother,
but because he's helped build up the
business I started as a youngster.
What I referred to was—See here,
Nora, suppose you leave me alone
with this young man.”
A laugh of merriment bubbled
from Leonora.
““Poor Father! You can’t get used
Dad's giv
to vamoose
g you a
grace-
said Don,
story, darling: how when you went
at the call of my poor, dying, de-
serted mother and found me, a
gangling six-year-old whose birth
record named you as my father, you
took me home and treated me ex-
actly as if I were your own, though
you knew, with no shadow of a doubt
that I was the child of—""
“Leonora!”
She raised her head, meeting his
shocked eyes gravely.
“Well, Dad, it's true, isn't it? 1
had to tell him. Don knows what
an angel you've been to me, and
that I'd do anything on earth for
you short of giving him up. You
really shouldn't ask me to do that,
you know.”
‘““Not when I believe it’s for your
own happiness?’ asked James,
Then, as the girl shook her head, he
added: “Well, clear out, both of you.
I've got to think things over. Clear
out.”
CHAPTER Nl
It was long past midnight when
James Lambert went upstairs.
“Thinking things over’ had been a
devastating process that led him
back to his first amazing glimpse of
Leonora, her thin little legs dangling
forlornly from a straight-backed,
uncomfortable chair beside a bed on
which lay the body of her mother.
He had come in answer to a fran-
tic telegram, the first word Iris had
vouchsafed him since the note he
had found after she went away. But
he was too late, She had been dead
almost three hours; and ever since
(the woman who ran the rooming
house said afterwards), the child
had sat there, refusing to move,
to eat, to cry, holding tight in one
small, clenched fist a scrap of paner
which she had promised her mother
to give to ‘‘the dear, kind father”
who was coming for her, and to no
one else.
James never forgot the shock of
Nora's presence in that silent room.
While he stood below on a sagging,
littered porch, the landlady had told
him that his wife ‘“was gone, poor
soul,” but because he was expected
“the body’’' had not been removed;
and added, remembering the little
girl: “She's in the fourth-floor-back,
Mister, and if you don't mind I
won't go up. My heart's not good
and them stairs is something aw-
ful.”
James did not want her to go up.
He was about to look upon the face
of his dead wife, the woman who
had betrayed him, but whom he had
never forgotten nor ceased to love.
He was vastly stirred—stirred and
horrified that she had been living in
so sordid a place. he had pictured
her sharing a life of luxury with
her Italian lover—had even attend-
ed the man's concerts in the futile
hope of catching a glimpse of his
beloved amid the audience. It was
plain now that the fellow had de-
serted her—damn him!—left her to
die in poverty and among stiran-
gers...
Ascending those steep and narrow
stairs, James Lambert's heart
pounded with indignation. His whole
form trembled as he stepped into
the gloomy room. Out of deference
to the dead a shade at its one
small window had been partly low-
ered, and, closing the door, he stood
for a long moment with his back
against it, breathing heavily.
So this was where his adored Iris
had lived—and died! The man’s sad
eyes dragged slowly around the
place, avoiding instinctively the bed
where lay all that was left of some-
God, what
The dim light could not
hide what seemed to James its
dreadful poverty: the broken win-
dow stuffed with an old skirt; the
sagging bureau propped with a
block of wood; the shabby rug, a
small, mute pair of shoes beside a
chale , . .
His stricken glance came to the
bed at last, and seeing that rigid
sheet, hard tears
that had been suppressed for seven
years, suddenly blinded him. More
shaken than seemed possible after
hand, he saw-Nora!
Wholly unprepared for her pres-
ence, even for her existence, James
was for the moment without speech;
but something about the patient,
drooping figure—the soft, gold hair
like that of his lost Iris, gripped him
strangely. He came still nearer,
ing eyes.
“Whose—whose little
you?” he questioned,
knew the answer.
“Mamma’s,” said Nora
looked up wearily. “Are you
father—the dear, kind father who's
going to take me—home?"’
*“She told you that?” he asked,
and his voice trembled.
*“Yes," said the child. Then, quite
without warning, her mouth worked
pitifully, dreadfully. Her small, cold
hand extended the crumpled paper.
““She—-she gave me this—for you.
I—-I'd like to go home now, please,
if you don't mind. It's bedtime,
isn't it?" I'm pretty tired.” And then,
strange calm breaking, she
wailed suddenly: “1 want Mammal
I—1 want Mamma!”
Her tears were the best thing that
could have happened, for both of
them. In comforting Nora, James
himself found comfort. For those
painfully scrawled words on the
scrap of paper tore his heart. De-
serted only a month before her baby
was born, too proud to appeal to the
husband she had wronged so griev-
ously yet giving the child his name
because she had no other, Iris had
at the last turned to him, asking
protection for her little Nora.
Nor did she ask in vain. From
the moment when James lifted the
heartbroken, lonely child into his
arms, Leonora had never lacked a
father. Indeed, the knowledge that
Iris had known he would not fail
her, was the man's greatest com-
fort. Nora was barely six years
old at the time. She grew into a
happy, sweet-tempered little girl
who accepted the good things which
came to her without question, and
often without thanks. They were a
part of life. The bare, cold room
where she had kept her unchildlike
vigil, became at last only a vague
memory, a memory dimly painful of
something she must have dreamed.
Not until a tragic day when she was
thirteen did James Lambert realize
that the child had accepted him lit
erally as her own father. He re-
turned from business late one after-
noon to find her sitting alone in the
twilight. This was unusual, for Nora
loved gaiety and young companions.
He asked, puzzled and a bit wor-
ried: “What's the matter, dear? Not
sick, are you?”
“No,” she answered. ‘1 was try-
ing to—to remember."
Her voice was husky, and, still
troubled, James came nearer.
“Remember what?"
“Things,” said Nora. “Things
about—about my-—"' She hesitated,
looked up at him; and it seemed to
her foster-father that the girl had
left childhood far behind in the few
hours since they had last met. “Tell
me,” she said, “was Mamma really
are
he
girl
though
a—a bad woman? Aren't you my
father? Is that why Ned hates me?
Don't 1 belong to anyone—anyone
in the whole world?"
“My God!” cried James, pro-
foundly shocked. ‘‘You belong to
me! Where did you hear . ”
Then, as upon that other day of
tragedy, Nora's self-control gave
way ana the story was sobbed out in
those loving, fatherly arms that had
never failed her—the old, old story
of hearing the tale from some spite-
ful playmate. Perhaps, James pon-
dered as he held her close, per-
haps Nora had been growing a trifle
arrogant. Ned had complained on
more than one occasion that his lit-
tle sister ‘‘put on airs.” His father
had thought the comment mere jeal-
ousy on the boy's part; for despite
the ten years’ difference in their
ages, Ned was jealous of Leonora.
tT ug
Bir haber 7 mall
“She gave me this for you.”
Well, he sighed,
his girl
other nor got along
time had come when
must learn the truth, though it
would hurt them both; so, as ten-
derly as such truth can be told,
James told her.
Nora had gone to boarding school
after that; then to college, where
Then came Europe, a gorgeous,
colorful six months to Nora—a lone-
ly, dragging time to James. And
on the way home, because her com-
insisted on taking a one.
ever since, James Lambert told
himself, had been ‘‘eternally hang-
ing around the house,’’ that is, when
during his absences the fellow had
written every day; and Leonora,
who took a Pullman chair for an
|
|
Corinne that Nora was ‘pulling the
wool over Dad’s eyes.”
Well, James pondered, perhaps he
had spoiled Leonora. He closed his
eyes as from the room beyond drift-
ed the tender, haunting strains of a
Chopin Nocturne. Nora was play-
ing, and, much as James loved to
listen, this gift of her musician fa-
ther subtly disturbed him.
It was late when he went to bed;
and in the morning he gave Nora
his ultimatum.
“If I'm to consider your happi-
ness, my dear, there's but one way
out. I'll give that boy a job. 1
don’t say that he must keep it for a
lifetime; but he must prove that he's
got the stability to stick at some-
thing that will support you. A year
ought to show that, Nora; and
you're both young. If at the end of
that time he has saved money and
shown himself even fairly efficient,
I'll say no more.”
“Even if he throws up the job
next day?" asked Leonora.
Her father looked at her, his eyes
a trifle hard.
“You think he would?”
“I think,” she answered, speak-
ing thoughtfully, ‘that a year in an
office—especially in Ned's office,
will finish Don, Father."
“You feel then, that my proposal
is unfair?"
Nora glanced up, a wistful smile
lighting her face as she responded:
“Not as you view things, Daddy.
But to Don it will be—well—a year
out of life. What would you do, I
wonder, if I ran away with him?"
“l should disinherit you,” said
James, and meant it. Then, as she
remained silent: “Is that what
you're considering, my dear?”
Don accepted James Lambert's
offer
“1 fear 1 won't make a successful
office worker, sir; but I can try,”
he said. And James responded with
unfeigned heartiness:
“That's all 1 ask.”
To Nora the young man was more
explicit,
“Remove at
“Your
at is,
worried frown
once,"’ told her sternly
father's right, of course-—th
right from his own viewpoint if 1
can't serve a year for you, Nora,
I''m no good We'll make a game
of it, beloved-—mark i
a calendar, and when the time is
up we'll forge our chains and sail
away together,
that
he
off each dav on
‘Into the sunset's turquoise marge,
‘ . To fairyland Hesperides,
Over the hills and far away . ar"
He kissed her, and lifting her chin
to look into her eyes, saw with satis-
faction that the smiles which had
vanished from them were back
again His girl wasn’t know,
Don vowed, the jail sentence that
She
wasn't to realize that his only rea-
to
the sorrow that any trouble with
adventures in towns where there
wasn't even a clean hotel!
“I: is."
Ned the day before, “an infatuation
beyond my understanding.”
“And if she marries him,” Ned
predicted, “you'll be supporting ‘em
all their lives, Dad. Don Mason is
no good. He's a rolling stone.”
It would have been some satisfac-
tion to the girl in question had she
known that James told her brother
brusquely to ‘“‘mind his own busi-
ness''—that he would look after Leo-
nora. It was seldom indeed that his
much-loved son caused this some-
what fiery man to lose his temper;
but now he was worried, and Ned's
well-aimed criticism touched a ten-
der spot. So the younger man had
gone home rather disgruntled to tell
young man could not see himself a
part of the hustling throng which
jammed the subway every morning.
The thought of joining it turned him
And there was Ned!
If anyone had accused Ned Lam-
bert of being inconsiderate of his
sister's lover, he would have scoffed
at the idea. Not until years later
when life bad somewhat tempered
Ned's cocksureness, did he suspect
that his habit of pausing beside
Don's desk to observe his work,
much as a teacher keeps an eye on
the progress of a stupid pupil, was
gall and wormwood to the younger
man. He did not guess that his me-
ticulous suggestions drove Don mad
—that when an occasional error did
occur, it seemed to the harassed
youth that Nora's brother took ironic
pleasure in detecting it.
(TO BE CONTINUED)
Cold flames, perhaps a step toward
the long-sought goal of cold light,
have been discovered by soviet
physicist, Dr. N. N. Semenoff, of the
Institute of Chemical Physics at
Leningrad, who has won interna-
tional fame though still under forty,
observes a writer in the Detroit
Free Press.
The existence of ordinary hot
flames depends on the fact that
many chemical reactions which
ought to take place do not do so be-
cause of a mysterious reluctance of
atoms to combine. The oxygen of
the air, for example, should react
instantly with the carbon of fuels
or with the iron of bridges or build-
ings. It is fortunate for mankind
that these reactions happen reluc-
tantly. If they did not most things
in the world would vanish instantly
in flame or ashes.
For several years Dr. Semenoff
has been studying what chemists
call chain reactions, in which a pre-
liminary chemical reaction acts to
assist another one. The rusting of
iron in air is not unlike this. A
first reaction of the iron with the
elements of water acts to cause a
slow combustion or burning of the
iron into rust, in much the same
way that iron will burn rapidly and
explosively if highly heated. Ordi-
nary coal gas also refuses to burn
unless the reaction is started by
heat but by adding a very small
amount of a chemical called phos-
phire Dr. Semenoff is able to make
the coal gas “burn’ at a tempera-
ture only about half as high as or-
dinarily is necessary.
Some light is produced even by
this chilly gas flame, but not yet
enough to be of practical importance
fer illumination.
Caterpillars Can Hear
This statement has been made be-
cause experiments have shown that
these insects have the ability to
hear; for certain sounds result in
sudden movements of the body.
Hairs that absorb sound are pro-
vided in place of ears. In experi
ments, when these hairs were coat-
ed with shellac and noises were
made, the caterpillar did wot re
spond.
By
RUTH WYETH
SPEARS
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received
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