Joseph Greer and His Daughter VIOLET—REVEALED SYNOPSIS. — Joseph Greer, a black-bearded pirate of fifty, having discovered a process of extracting fiber from flax straw, is made director of a big corpo ration. For years distrusting men of affairs. Greer has played a lone hand. Now holding what he considers the winning cards, he is willing to sublet his wits to wealth. To protect his own interests, Joe has foisted his own secretary, Jennie MacArthur, upon the company Henry Cra ven. a bank clerk related to John Williamson, the millionaire back er of Greer's new company, is offered by Williamson the posi tion of treasurer of the new com pany, with the generally under stood purpose of watching Greei. Craven accepts. Joe tells Jennie about his wife, and his nineteen year-old daughter. Beatrice, whom he has never seen. He is planning to force the daughter into Chicago society. Joe goes to a week-end party at William sons house, where he meets \ io let. John's wife, and is strongly drawn to her. He fascinates her Beatrice arrives and father and daughter get acquainted. Bea trice proves to be handsome, self wltted and lacking social polish. L CHAPTER V—Continued. —7— She didn't feel at all sure she liked the taste of Joe. She found his real istic moments unpleasantly acrid; his egotism, naive; and his prudery—for she'd been aware that she'd sometimes shocked him—ridiculous. She admit ted the attractiveness of his looks, his surprisingly good speech, his vigor and freshness, and the queer miscellany that formed his background; the Jungle, and the musical-comedy stage; that he bought pictures, and had never been to Europe, and knew Sorolla. Tliis was how her palate reported it— about as a boy’s palate reports his first taste of strong drink. She didn't reckon on anything in her, behind her palate and capable of overruling its report, being concerned in the matter. But, even on that first morning, she'd been forced to Ignore as Irrelevant some rather queer sensations and im pulses she'd had. It annoyed her to learn that Joe was a married man with a grown daugh ter; she lost her temper with John, who told her about it. “He’s probably got five or six wives,” she rapped out. “One in every port, like a sailor. I suppose one of them is trying to put him in jail and lie's come to you— And I'd bet you’ve said you’d help him out!" She would barely listen to John's detailed explanation that Greer’s mat rimonial difficulties were, compara tively speaking, respectable, and it did not in the least placate her when she heard. “Respectable!” she fumed. “That’s the beastly second-rate vul garity of it. Why do you think they have to marry those people?” When she heard about Beatrice, and Joe's wish to enter her in a smart school, preferably Thornycroft, where Dorothy was, she fairly boiled over. What affair was it of ids, or his daugh ter’s, where Dodo went to school? How did he even know of the school unless John had been babbling about it? But of course John had been! Given the man all the details, no doubt; Miss Hood’s address, himself as a reference, everything! “What's the harm if I did?” he asked. “He couldn't get her into that school in a hundred years—not in ten, anyhow. And next year’s all that mat ters to us.” It wasn't this argument, however, that had the effect of pulling his wife up short; it was his look of curiosity at her. What was there for her to be so disturbed about? She, herself, couldn’t understand why she’d been so bitter about It nor why she went on thinking and feeling that way. She tried to make out that she was angry with herself for being angry, but the intricacies of this ab straction were a little beyond her. Pre posterously, what warmed her into a friendlier feeling for the man was the outrageous surmise that the girl mightn’t be his daughter, after all, but some little fluff he was trying to palm off upon them, under a cloak no one would think to look beneath. She found this notion rather entertaining, though she didn’t take it seriously— Well, she didn't take him seriously, either! Sh* didn't pass It on to John, for she had a clear premonition that he wouldn't think It funny. She didn’t suppose Margaret Craven would think It funny, either, but this didn't prevent her mentioning It to Margaret, experi mentally. Margaret took it In the most sur prising way; fairly flew at her over It. “That’s like you, Violet,” she said when, after a tight silence, she spoke at all. Her voice was brittle with anger, and her eyes were dry with It. “How long have you been telling that sweet little story?” The mere impact of the charge took Violet's breath. “I haven’t been felling It at all,” she protested. “I only Just thought of It. It struck me as amus ing, and I said it.” "It will be frightfully amusing for her, won’t it?” There was no quality of reflection in Margaret's voice, not even the thinnest veneer to give it a aurface. "To find a story like that go ing round! > young girl, alone as she is; even her father a stranger to her.” • “It isn't going around,” Violet re iterated. Then, with a short laugh, as she recovered her balance: "Oh, If it Is, It’s not my doing. But it s a natural enough thing for anybody to think of, who knows what he's like. i By Henry Kitchell Webster Copyright by The Bobbs-MerriU Co. As a possibility, anyhow. After all, how do you know It isn't true?" “I met her last night,” Margaret said. ”\Ve had dinner there, Henry and I. She happens to look like him, in the first place. He had a photograph of her before she came; you could even tell from that— So, If you want a story,” she went on, after a breathless pause, “you’d better make It that she's illegitimate. It isn’t likely that she brought her mother's marriage certifi cate with her.” To Violet the purport of this was as plain as it was astonishing. If Mar garet had said, in so many words, ‘‘I think of marrying this man. I've made a start toward getting hint. So, if you want to play fair, you'll let him alone" —she couldn’t have made it clearer. As a decent, married, middle-aged member of society Violet had to ac knowledge the reasonableness of this request. In some moods she even ac corded a tentative rhaif approval of the plan. If Joe was in the way to make a serious fortune out of this linen process that looked so good to John, he’d be a pretty good matrimo nial risk—as good as Margaret would ever get a chance to take. violet wanted ner married, one wan still a social asset, for a difficult din ner or a week-end party; but ten years from now—a little tighter drawn, her wit oftener mordant than refresh ingly acidulous, one wouldn't know what to do with her. In such a mar riage, Margaret, fastidious as she was, would, of course, loathe the man him self. Her first unguarded comments upon him had really been funny. It wasn’t likely the instinct of a lifetime could have changed enough in two or three months to make him seem, per sonally, desirable. It was that prospec tive fortune Margaret was banking on, a line of reasoning which justified Violet, the first chance she got, in put ting the project before John. Her opening startled him, for she began by asking if the linen business was really a frightfully good thing, and he jumped to the surmise that Joe was trying to unload his stock on some of her friends. It took a minute or two to get him back on the rails. “It's him I want to know about,” she insisted. “Whether lie's going to get frightfully rich out of it or not. Be cause Margaret means to marry him.” Again it took her a few minutes to get him calmed to the listening-point. Margaret wasn’t eloping with him this afternoon; she wasn't even en gaged to him. “I didn’t say she was going to marry him ; I said she meant to, when the time came. It’s a plan of hers, that’s all. Only I thought you might as well know.” Let down, he swung the other way and treated the idea jocularly, as an other of her numerous mares’ nests. "How did you find out about it? Did she tell you herself?” “Practically,” Violet asserted, and went on with confirmatory details. Margaret had been seeing quite a lot of him; she’d known about his daugh ter before any of the rest of them— before the girl came on at all; had seen a photograph of her; they’d dined there again last night, she and Henry, to meet her. “She says the girl’s rather nice and she’s going to take her up. She’s asking Dodo for a lunch for her next week. Doesn't that look as if she meant something? And if he’s going to be really rich”—Violet watched her husband intently as she ventured this—“it might not be such a bad thing for her.” She could see that he was upset by the idea, though he went on proclaim ing his total disbelief in it. A fine grained girl like Margaret couldn’t be considering Joe Greer as a husband; a man of rough manners, no morals, a brutal temper, not even divorced yet, and fifty years old. And, on top of it all, a mere adventurer, anyhow. “His age wouldn’t bother anybody,” she remarked dryly. "And he won’t go on being an adventurer, if this linen business makes him rich—really rich, I mean.” "Weil, li trial s wnat sues counting on," he grumbled, “she’ll wait a while. If she takes my advice she will.” "Why?” Violet demanded. “Don’t you think it’s a good thing?” “Of course I do. Wouldn’t have put money Into it if I didn’t. But that doesn’t mean necessarily that he’ll get rich over it.” He went on, in response to a rather startled look she shot him, to explain. He didn’t mean anything sinister by that. Only, with a fellow like Greer, you never could tell. He might fly ofT the handle any time. “He isn’t the sort that naturally girts rich. Sooner or later he's likely to bite off more than he can chew. Of course, if she did marry him—” He relapsed Into an abstracted silence and took two or three drafts on his cigar. “She won’t, though, 1 don’t believe,” he concluded. He hadn’t taken the idea as hard as he might have been expected to, for the amount he’d done for Margaret, all these years, had made him a bit ro mantic about her, and he liked having her around, just as she was: at home in his house, on call. He might have vetoed the thing summarily, and or dered It broken up; given his wife carte blanche to see that it went no further. Distinctly, he hadD’t done that. Margaret had better go slow— this was all his advice came to; and she'd have to do that, anyhow. Even if the man were divorced today, she couldn’t marry him, legally, here in Illinois, for another year. And any number of things could liappc-n In that time. The thing he'd said that had given Violet most food for thought was that broken sentence, “Of course, if he married Margaret—” Had he meant that this would bring Joe. some ! how, within the pale? Afford him the protection of another code, so that he’d be allowed to get rich, after ail?” Anyhow, the thing for Violet to do for the next few months—was to let Joe Greer alone. If she as much as i looked at him, let alone lifted a finger, Margaret would attribute the probable failure of her project (for what seri ous attraction could a cold, finicky per son like Margaret effectively exert upon this genial freebooter?) to her. and, judging by the latest sample of her conduct, act most unreasonably about it. Luckily, it mattered very little to Violet herself; she'd have nothing to do with Joe—for the pres ent, anyhow. i »ne Kept mis resolution situiui'ounj for a little less than a week : then, on the afternoon of Margaret’s lunch for Beatrice, as a result of a chance en counter with him, she broke it rather badly. She'd motored in with Dorothy, having three or four things she wanted to do in town—the most important of these being a call on Kileen Corbett, Gregory’s wife, who was at the Pres byterian hospital, having her appendix removed. It was around five o’clock when she left the hospital. She hadn't gone more than a block or two when her chauffeur rajn over a jagged frag ment of a broken milk-bottle and blew a tire. He trundled over to the curb, stopped behind a far that was parked there—it had, she thought at the time, a faintly familiar look—and went to work, in the disgustingly deliberate manner characteristic of chauffeurs, putting on a spare. It was the hottest part of what had turned out to be a remorselessly hot day, and this particular spot was, she was sure, the hottest in Chicago. The prospect of a fifteen or twenty min utes’ wait was irksome. But before the first of them had passed, Joe ap peared, amazingly, descending in the freight elevator from the very building opposite which they’d stopped. “What on earth are you doing out here?” she cried at sight of him. She cared nothing about an answer; the question was galvanic. All she was aware of was a tingling sensation from the brilliant look lie gave her and the feel of the hand which met the one she’d stretched out to him. But his answer was not perfunctory. “This is the last place I'd expect you to come to,” he said. “Even your hus band's never paid us a visit here.” Then, perceiving the chauffeur's occu pation and, in the same Instant, Intel* preting her puzzled frown, he ex plained, “Why, this is our laboratory. I thought, for a minute, you’d come out to see what our linen process was like.” “I didn't even know you had a lab oratory,” she said. “What is it like? A laboratory always sounds exciting.” “This one isn't,” he told her deri sively. “It’s so beastly hot right here,” she began, “that almost anything—” “It's hotter up there,” he broke in. “And it stinks to heaven. I wish there was some place—” The roar of a pass ing elevated train checked his speech, but he went on staring at her thought fully until it passed. “—I wish there were some cool, quiet place that I could take you to, and make you com fortable, and give you a drink—or a cup of tea. But if there’s such a place within a mile of here, I don't know it.” She agreed with him about the frightfulness of the West Side, and then told him idly that her fatlier-In It Was Around Five o’clock When She Left the Hospital. law's old house, where John had lived until they married, was Just round the corner. “The human animal can change a lot in one generation, can’t it?” he ob served. "They tell a wonderful lot of stories about old Nick. It’s queer to think you must have known him. I expect he was more my kind than your husband is.” He gave her no chance to deal with this, for by now he’d got an Idea. There was no need of her sitting here, sweltering. He could take her in his car wherever she had been going, and hers could follow and pick her up as soon as it was in running order. “I'll tell you what you can do, if you’ve really time to rescue me; you can take me to our town house. There’s no one there but the caretakers, but a closed-up house ia always the coolest place there la." I He held the door while she instruct ed her chauffeur. “Come to Astor street for me, Jeffrey,’’ she said. "But you'd better get a new spare tire first.” Joe showed no sign of noting that this order of hers substantially protracted the time she’d have to wait. It really meant nothing to him, of course, be cause she hadn't the least idea of ask ing him to wait with her. He kept her wondering about him all the way home. He drove fast but with unexpected care. And he made no effort to talk to her. As they turned Into Chicago avenue he nodded toward a plain brick building and told her it was another laboratory, Hugh Cor bett’s. “There's one of your bunch I’d like to really know,” he said; and when she asked, with a laugh, “The only one?” he let the question go with no more answer than an unsmiling look. She had to direct him to her house, and something about his smile, when she commented on the oddity of his not knowing where she lived, decided her to invite him in. There was a dash of mischief about it, too, for she saw he didn't know how much or how little she meant by it. “Oh, come in,” she insisted. “You deserve a chance to get cool after rescuing me like that; and It's only for a few minutes.” But not even the drink she provided put him at ease. Experimentally, witn me rewarueu purpose of surprising him, she spoke of his daughter, whom he, apparently, had no intention of mentioning. “Mar garet's been telling me how niee she is— Why have you kept her dark?” But the surprise proved a boomerang. After his first start he took time to frame a deliberate answer which left her gasping. “It wasn't because I was ashamed of her. It was because I don’t know where you and I stand. I don't care what you tnke me for, a pirate or a cannibal—anything you like.” There was nothing humorous about this; his tone was almost menacing. “But she’s no—cannibal princess! And If I can help it, she isn't going to be taken that way.” He began with n disarming apology for having startled her. He'd spoken out more plainly than she was used to, but he hadn't done it wantonly. There was something he wanted her to un derstand. "I’ve always been a law unto my self,” he said. “That's the only kind of person I could be. If you're like that, you’ve got to make up your mind not to care a d—n what -anyone else thinks of you or of the things you do. It’s the only possible line to take, if you stop to think. But that doesn’t mean that I’ve been satisfied with everything I’ve done. I've done some things that were pretty low-down. I’ve treated some people that way. One of them was my wife. I deserted her before Beatrice was born. Before I knew she was going -to be born. She was almost a year old before I knew I had a daughter— Well, I can't make anything up to my wife. She hates me; always did. I’m the last sort of man in the world for her to have married. You must hnve seen things happen like that yourself. But I can make It up to the girl, and I'm going to do it. She hasn't had much of a life up to now, but now it’s going to begin. The best there is—of every thing. It may not be all smooth sail ing at first. I thought I’d put her in the same school your daughter goes to, but they've written to say they’re full.” His skeptical manner gave her a clue. "I'm sure that's true,” she said. “We had to enter Dorothy at Thorny croft years before she was ready to go. Everybody does— I suppose that's why you thought you didn’t know where you—stood; as you said, with me. "The trouble with you is,” she went on after a silence, “that you think you’re still in the jungle.” ‘“And are you telling me I’m not?” he asked. “Shall I begin trusting ev erybody?” She laughed. "Trust your mends, anyhow,” she said, adding, after an other pause, ‘‘And don’t let Margaret Craven monopolize that nice daughter of yours. Bring her up to see us Sun day morning. Everybody comes, more or less, to swim and play tennis, and so on, and stays to lunch.” She added a final touch. “I’ll see that Margaret’s there—for you,” she said. He made, in words, no reply to this, but his look took hold of her again and for a good long moment held her tight, so that, once more, she felt the blood burn in her face. She’d been kissed with a good deal less intimacy than that came to. He didn’t offer even the formal contact of a handshake; mere ly nodded at l>er and went away, wear ing his most brilliant grin. The only thing to be watchful of was the possibility of her having a bad Influence on Dorothy. (Violet had con vulsive moments of taking the respon sibilities of motherhood very seriously Indeed.) But Dorothy’s report of the luncheon put that misgiving away. Violet had to ask for it, for Dodo, after two days on the Wollaston farm with Sylvia, had forgotten all about the girl. "Oh, at Margaret’s lunch! Why, she’s all right. I think she means us to understand from something she said while Margaret was out of the room, that she means to vamp Henry— Shouldn’t wonder if she could, too. She isn’t-—poisonous, If that’s what you mean,” the child assured her. “She’s all—right; only not much. It’s sort of too bad, too, because I think her father must be rather a lark.” "Well, It’s a case of love me, love my dog,” Violet remarked. “If you want to get on with him, don’t try to treat her like a cannibal princess, be cause he won't have it. They’re com ing up Sunday,” she added. "If ahe was anywhere near as amus ing as a cannibal princess it would ba easier,” said Dodo, dispassionately, “'but I'll do my best. Mother.” Sunday at the Williamsons’ went off, Joe decided, very well. There was nothing, even in the smell of the air, to suggest that Beatrice was being taken as a cannibal princess. She seemed, whenever his eyes fell upon her, to be having not only a jolly time, but to be making, especially with the boys, a real success. She was in the pool, most of the time before lunch, getting taught, enthusiastically, to swim. After lunch he lost sight of her for a while, but she tnrned up, just as he was beginning to wonder about her in the company of a white-flanneled youngster with whom she seemed on very good terms. He had dark-red curly hair; his features, without being insignificant, were small and fine, so that he'd have made an unusually pretty girl, though his build was sturdy enough. He walked with a well marked limp. Joe heard him call her Trixie, and took his first opportunity to ask, not of the girl herself, who he was. His informant was Mrs. Hugh Corbett. “He's I.ansing Ware,” she told him, but stopped at that, short of giving him any further details. Joe asked if he'd been wounded in the war, and noted a momentary hesi tation about her reply. “He was in the air service,” she said. "He got that stiff ankle in an accident at his training-camp, quite early. I don't know exactly what it was.” Joe asked no more questions about his daughter's cavalier. The boy was placed, implicitly, as one of the “regu The Only Thing to Be Watchful of Was the Possibility of Her Having a Bad Influence on Dorothy. lar'’ people lie wanted her to know, and that "Trixie,” along with liis rather intimate way with her, was, as far as lie could see, merely part and parcel of the manners current here. Driving home with her that after noon, after a few miles of thoughtful silence, he told her she needn’t, unless she liked to, go to Cape Cod with Mar garet—oh, perhaps for a week or two later. The visit had not produced quite the sort of step in his acquaintance with Violet that he'd looked forward to. But Joe hadn’t felt slighted. Even her unconcern had suggested a certain friendliness, and, on the terrace after lunch, she'd openly made an opportu nity for a talk with him. His first sight of her that morning had affected him powerfully, too, re newing the bewildered Incredulity, the discover’s excitement, and the strong sensuous attraction that he’d felt the morning she appeared at the traps. She was in the pool when he and Bea trice arrived, among the earliest of the duy’s visitors, and it was literally true that, for moment, after she’d climbed the ladder at the deep end and come to greet them, he didn’t know her. The tight blue-rubber bathing-cap which confined her hair, and the clinging wet sheen of the swimming-suit, no more ample than one her daughter would have worn, triumphantly challenged youth Itself. She’d smiled at his stare, and laughed at his explanation of it Dorothy, who had escorted them down from the house, said, dispassionately, to Beatrice, “Vou see how hopeless it is. Now do you wonder I don't call her mother?” His vision of Violet—revealed, Dt ana-like, finer and whiter and silkier than his imagination would have dared pretend, persists. It was not far in the background of his thoughts while they talked on the terrace. Yet this sensuous appeal was not the only, nor, perhaps, the strongest, she’d made to him. He’d enjoyed the friendly good humor of her ready laugh; her sallies of what might pass, unscrutlniaeu, for wit; her light-handed way of redlspos ing people when the old groupings were growing a little stale—she took it easier than Margaret and therefor* did it better. “You little wildcatl Stop fighting and I’ll let you go.” (TO BE CONTINUED.) Maundy Money. A relic of a very curious charity ex ists in the giving of money to the poor of certain London parishes on Maundy Thursday. Originally this money wai accompanied by gifts of clothes and provisions, and, strangest of all, by the washing of poor people’s feet by the king or queen in person. Another cu rious point about this charity was that the number of poor persons entitled to receive it was the exact number jf years which the reigning monarch bad lived. BEST Timm- Tried REMEDY for GALLS STRAINS LAMENESS "The Good Old Standby Sine* 1848” ngs, Durham. > yean I have used Mustang Linirdent Says Tno. R/Hutching N. C.— For 15 : your Mexican 1_„ ... and I consider it the best liniment on earth; I am never without it. I recently used it on a bad gall on my hone’s neck and it cured it in three days." No Sting or Smart Containa No Alcohol FR F F Writs for beautiful SOUVENIR PEN* * *, CIL,««nt absolutely frte with complete directions for aeing Mustang Liniment for family ailments, and for livestock and poultry. LyonMfg. Co., 42 South Fifth St , Brooklyn. N Y. 25c—50c—$ 1.00 Sold by Drug and General Stored VTanX MEXICAN fh MUSTANG LINIMENT BOSCHEE’S SYRUP Allays irritation, soothes and heals throat and lung inflammation. The constant irritation of a cough keeps the delicate mucus membrane of the throat and lungs in a congested condition, which BOSCHEE’S Syrup gently and quickly heals. For thitf reason it has been a favorite household remedy for colds, coughs, bronchitis and especially for lung troubles in millions of homes all over the world for the last fifty seven years, enabling the patient to obtain a good night’s rest, free from coughing with easy expectoration in the morning. You can buy BOSCHEE'S SYRUP wherever medicines are sold. K BOYS We want to secure an AMBITIOUS boy In YOUR town from 11 to 14 years old, to rep resent us; OUR boys merely take orders—we DELIVER them. If you know of a boy who 2an devote THREE HOURS A WEEK, after school, advise him to write us Immediately. We Do Not Give Prizes—We Give Money Our plan teaches boys to operate on a strictly business basis; we make 'WORTHY MEN out of boys thru showing them the Value of the dollar. Send us your name and tell us whether or not you would like to BARN your own money, rather than ask *Dad” for it. Just address BARR MANUFAC rUBlNG COBP., Bo>*’ Division, Tyrone, Ps. Money uaca wunoui queonuu if HUNT’S SALVE fails In the treatment of ITCH, ECZEMA, RING WORM .TETTER or othet Itching? skin diseases. Price 75c at druggists, or direct from A.I. Richards M,dicing Co.,$h,miin,Tci FROST PROOr Cabbage Plants / Early Jersey, Charleston Wakefield, Flat Dutch, Succession. Postpaid, 100, 80c; 800, 76c; 600, $1.00; 1000, 81.60. Charges collect - 1000, 81,00; 6000 at 90c; 10,000 at 80c. Bermuda Onions. lettuce, Collard, Kale, Brussels Sprouts, Beets, Kohl-Rabi plants same price. Satisfaction guaranteed. D. F. Jamison, Summerville, S. C» THE BEST WAY TO GET YOUR IRON PHYSICIANS have prescribed Gude’s Pepto-Mangan for 30 years because of its sujaly of iron. They found that it was xeadily absorbed, did not irritate the stom ach and quickly toned and strength ened the system. At your drug gist’s, in both liquid and tablets. Free Trial Tablets To Bee {oT Tourself rree inai laoiets the heaith-buiidin* value of Gude's Pepto-Mangan, write today for generous Trial Package of Tablets. Send no money — just name and address to M. J. Breitenbach Co.. 63 Warren St.. N. Y. Gude’s Pepto-Mangan Tonic and Blood Enricher It Last—A Simple Machine That Splits wood as fast as your safr can cut it. Card brings literature. (Mention this paper.) TOM HUSTON MFO. CO., Columbus. Ga. CURES COLDS -IA GRIPPE f» 24/fottrm tn JAM r-OSUM^OIIINMt—| Standard cold remedy world osar. Bamand boa bearing Mr. Hill's portrait and aignatuiai „ At All Druggitt*— 30 Cants YOUNG MAN 1 let the Charlotte Barber College teach you a greed trade and be independent. Write for catalogue. Charlotte Barber College, Charlotte. N. C. W. N. U., CHARLOTTE, NO. 4.-1924. \

Page Text

This is the computer-generated OCR text representation of this newspaper page. It may be empty, if no text could be automatically recognized. This data is also available in Plain Text and XML formats.

Return to page view