FIFTH INSTALMENT
When she was opposite a wide
door, Ellen gave up the idea she
could longer resist. Slipping from
the arms that held her, she thrust
one slender hand into a large,
strong hand that clutched at it,
eagerly.
"Let’s go!” she said jauntily. At
least she tried to say it jauntily.
As she got her cloak from the
room in which it was checked, as
she powdered her straight little
nose, as she carefully reddened her
lips, Ellen told herself that this'
strange emotion she was feeling
must be suppressed. She also told
herself that she must walk care
fully. That she must remember that
she didn’t even know the young
man’s name, and that she wasn’t
even interested in knowing it!
But she’d been twice around the
park in a cab with the young man,
still nameless, before she remem
bered that it was Sandy who had
taken her to the Six Arts Ball.
And who should, by all rights, have
been allowed to take her home from
it!
Three times around the park they
rode before they began to grow ac
customed to the wonder of it all.
For it wasn’t a petting party, not
that! It wasn’t the sort of thing
that Claire would have referred to
as "pash.” It was something less
easy to understand—and yet far
more simple—than a petting party
would have been. It was something
that couldn’t be regulated with a
slap, with a sharp word, with a
jest!
They had come out of the hotel
hands.
And Ellen, looking down through
the darkness at his head, bent above
her hands—hearing, as through a
dream, the whir of the car’s motor
—was feeling the same madness,
too. Why, the boy was right. He
was right! It was love.
But, in the graying darkness,
Ellen was going back to her mother.
Strange how close her mother was
tonight! Closer than she’d been in
those first early moments of grief,
three years ago.
"I met him at a costume dance,
your father ...” So had run her
mother’s story. "We were’nt even
introduced . . . He just came up. . .
We waltzed away . . • And he kiss
ed me ...”
So the story had gone—running
almost parallel to the events of this
very evening. Perhaps, if she let her
own story go along as it had start
ed, it would continue to run parall
el with her mother’s. But—.
And yet Ellen herself wanted to
be swept away—she, herself, want
ed to be a complete conquest. She’d
have to fight that desire. To fight
if af hpr mnrhpr had rnid her she
must. As her mother hadn’t.
With the boy’s lips burning
against her palms, she made the re
solve. With her head bent above his
bowed head, Ellen heard herself say
ing sharply, and aloud—
"It won’t get me. It won’t spoil
my life!”
The bowed head was raised. Blue
eyes—deeper blue, because they
were wet—sought across the sha
dows for her own.
"What won’t get you?” the boy
asked.
Ellen answered.
"You!” she said fiercely. "I won’t
let you get me. I’m not going to
fall in love with you. I never fall
n love; J can’t. Because I have
aothing to give, not a thing! I’m
;ort of a—a spiritual gold-digger,
it heart. Oh, I’m nice enough!” she
iidn’t want to make the admission,
jut she had to! "I’ve kept away
rom it all because I don’t want to;
ive close enough to any folk so!
hat I’ll get to care for them. Be-;
rause when you care for anyone, i
hat person can hurt you. I won’t,”
ter vocie had sunk to an odd, hys
erical, shrill whisper, "I won’t be
lurt.”
The gray in the sky had light- •
ined. The taxi driver, with a shrug,
lad started his fourth circuit of the
>ark.
But the boy in the taxi was star
ng into Ellen’s eyes.
"Of course,” he said, "if you’ll
narry me. I’ll take a chance on
hat! On your not having anything
:o give, I mean. On your not fall
ng in love. If you’ll marry me!”
rhere was assurance in his voice, as
veil as passion.
"You don’t understand,” she
;aid at last, in answer to that pro
sosal—"You don’t understand at
ill what I’m trying to say. Men?
n my life men are just transients,
rhey’ll always be just passers-by!”
The boy’s arm was around her,
light. "There’s one man,” he said,
'who won’t be transient, or a pas
er-by, in your life.”
Ellen repeated again from the
brmula. She shut her eyes and said
iver the words that she had said
lot so very long ago, to Dick.
'After all,” she said and she re
lated the words, parrot-like, “after
ill, what’s the advantage of marri
ige, as it concerns me?”
It was almost light enough now
or Ellen to see the hurt look in the
>oy’s eyes. Almost, but not quite,
ihe said fircely in her soul that he
ladn’t any right to look so hurt,
rhis attitude that she was taking
—surely she felt the pain of it as
nuch as anyone! And then, too,
ihe was saving him.
"After all,” he said slowly, "mar
ked to me you wouldn’t have to
vork, you know. Or to worry about
financial things. Or*—babies—not
f you really didn’t want ’em. And
you could have all the privacy in
the world, in the biggest apartment
>n Park Avenue—married to me.
you could. How do you get that
way?”
Ellen laughed, althougjh there
—and his lips were pressed hotly
against the palms of those hands.
was no mirth in her.
"You sound,” she said, "like a
millionaire! How do you get that
way?”
In his rumpled Pierrot suit, with
his jaw squarer than ever above the
dejected ruff, the boy made answer.
His tone held a certain bewilder
ment, a certain diffidence.
"I forgot,” he said, "that you
didn’t know my name. Odd, isn’t
it? To be arguing with a girl, try
ing to sell her your own especial
brand of marriage, when she doesn’t
know your name. I’m—my name’s
Brander. Tony Brander. Anthony
Brander, and you know what he
stood for, was my father. I am a
millionaire, you see ... I got that
way because my father cornered
sugar, once!”
Ellen’s eyes grew wide. Her mind
was a confusion of words. At first
j the boy’s halting speech didn’t re
gister. It was still just a slice of un
j reality. But when the coufusion be
gan to clear, she experienced a
direct sense of something that was
almost anger. What right had he
to think that dollars mattered?
What eartly right? She wanted to
say, "What difference does money,
even a million, make?” To say, "I’m
crazy about you. We belong to
gether. Take me in your arms.”
She wanted to say, "This is real.
Money isn’t. It’s only gold and
silver and engraved paper. You
can’t use it to buy love!” She want
ed to cry, "This is the answer to
all the half-baked things I’ve been
telling myself for three years.” She
wanted to say, foolishly, "So that’s
the reason you’re so sunburned.
Palm Beach, instead of building
roads and digging ditches.” She
wanted to say, "I love you!” Just
that—"I love you.’
But she said instead, very flip
pantly,
"And so you want to be my
sugar daddy? That’s it!”
All at once the boy’s voice was a
I crescendo of feeling. Almost the
[taxi driver could have heard what
he was saying, through the closed,
shatterproof front window. But
the taxi driver wasn’t extraordin
jarily interested in this tall Pierrot,
jin this slim, small page. He was
yawning, and wishing for coffee and
wheat cakes and fried eggs.
The boy said—
"I want you to marry me to
morrow. I mean when it’s actually
morning. I’d be afraid to wait—to
marry you in the ordinary way,
after an engagement and showers
and parties and a bachelor dinner!
I’d be afraid to lay plans, because
you’d slip out of them. I wouldn’t
dare take a chance. That’s why I
want you to marry me, and to do
it tomorrow. As soon as possible,”
his voice,—and much of the boy
ishness had vanished from it!—
broke off. And Ellen, with some
thing akin to desperation, fought
for words to say. Not even the boy
laboring as he was under the spell
of a vast emotion, would ever reach
the depth that Ellen had reached!
It was perhaps the very breathless
agony of those depths that made
Ellen realize how necessary it was
for her to talk. To say something
—something brittle, if she must—
that would fill this awful aching
gap
She made what was probably the
hardest effort of her life to speak
calmly.
"Better take me home, Tony,”
she said. And, yes, her voice was
completely steady. "And then go
home, yourself. And think this
thing out. You’ve got to think it
out, you know. For if it all seems
,mad and impossible tonight, it will
seem more mad, and more impos
sible tomorrow. I’m not denying
the way you feel, or that it’s real
to you. But it may be just the way
you’re feeling now. I know you’re
not just having fun. I didn’t ever
mean that. You probaby feel just
as you do, this minute. I’m sure
that you’re not giving me a—a
buggy ride! If- we should happen
to see a chapel right now, and a
minister in the doorway, I don’t
doubt you’d take me into the place
and marry me . And I’m,” she
drew away from his swift move
ment toward her, "I’m afraid I’d
let you get away with it.
CONTINUED NEXT WEEK
Claimed that people don’t have
much to do now, but they are likely
to be awful busy if you go around
with a subscription paper.
Ends a Cold
SOONER
Barbecue
Short Orders
Of
ALL KINDS
leadincTbrands of beer
BLACKWELDER’S
209 S. Main St. Near So. R. R. Depot.
in which the Six Arts Ball was
being held, in a sort of a mist.
When they had met in the hallway,
with everyday coats incongruously
covering bizarre costumes, they had
been almost shy with each other—
almost afraid to look each other in
the eye.
Climbing into a taxi, they settled
back in separate corners. But the
young man’s hand, groping out
across the clammy leather seat,
found Ellen’s hand, clung to it, and
finally drew her close.
"I suppose you think I’m crazy,”
he said.
"Quite crazy,” Ellen told him,
gently.
"You see,” the boy’s voice was
carefully held in leash, "you see,
I’d been watching you all evening,
as you danced with all the fat old
bunnies in the world. Cold sober,
you were—in the whole roomful
the only one that was cold sober! I
Listening to their kidding, and'
kidding them back, but only withj
half of you on the job. With the
Dther half of you as far away as if
you were in a garden.”
Ellen interrupted, and there was
1 sob in her voice. What incred
ible chance had prompted him to
make that comparison?
"Not that!” she said. "Not a
garden ...”
"And I thought,” the boy went
on heedless of he^ interruption,
'Ive got to get her away from it
ill. Because she—because I feel
:hat she belongs—to me!”
There was so much emphasis in |
lis use of the two words, "to me,”
bat Ellen jumped. She couldn’t
help it.
"You haven’t been drinking, i
murself?” she questioned, on aj
lote that she tried to make cynical.!I
'You haven’t been—” i
The boy answered. |]
"Don’t pull that sort of a line,”)
le told her fircely, "not now. We’re j i
way from the dance floor! This; I
sn’t the kind of stuff that I say to|j
just everybody. I’m—Ifkn telling
mu! It isn’t. This isn’t anything i
:o trifle with. This is a serious mat
er. It’s our whole lifetime!”
"What do you know about life
lines yours and mine?” she asked, i
'How do you know you’d trust i
:ven one day to a girl like me—a '
prl who goes to an artists’ ball in '
>ants, short velvet pants! Do you
mow who—what—1 am? Well,
’m a model by profession. You’ve
>een to the movies, you’ve heard
ill about models. How do you know
’m what is, technically, called
nice’? How do you know, in view
»f my profession, that trifling isn’t i
>est for the two of us?”
"How do I know?” he queried :
luskily. How does anyone know
mything at a time like this? I’ve ;
leard, before, about love at first (
ight. I’ve kidded about it. But I i
lidn’t know what it meant. I didn’t '
mow that it hit you like a disease.” |
ie paused, and then— :
"Personally, I don’t care right :
tow, whether you’re nice,” he told
Lllen, tensely, "or not nice. I don’t!)
ven care if you wear your velvet I
>ants on Fifth Avenue, in the mid- !
lie of the afternoon. I don’t care 1
ibout anything, except that I’m '
nad for you! I,” the boy gulped •
uddenly to make the words come i
dear, "I don’t actually know whe
;her or not I can trust one short
lay to you,” he said with a sort of |
lesperation, "but I’d take a chance]
>n trusting you with my soul!”
As he spoke his head was bent.
nw over the hands that he was]
lolding, and his lips were pressed]
hotly against the palms of those]
checks
COLDS
and
FEVER
first day 1
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Telephone 1571-V.
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