Casper Daily Tribune Newspaper, May 20, 1923, Page 19

f / SUNDAY, MAY 20, 1923. “SOULS FOR SALE”---A Great Novel of CHAPTER LV (Continued) His motto had been, “Go after what you want and bring it hom He who had not often come back fofled. prided himself on being a go-getter He wanted Mem and he went after her. He was willing even to bring her home. 2 CHAPTER LIX ‘There was no diffieuty about meeting Mem for a man whose name smelled of millions honestly ammased and dispersed, Austin Boas came humbly to Liem to pay his respects, and his enorm- ous name made her tremble as her bisque daintiness set him aquiver. He was shy, ashamed of his own lack of heroic beauty; and Mem was dazed to find herself feeling sorry for him, Pity was a dangerous moot! for her, Boas gazed at her with eyes as hungry and as winning as the eyes of the dog Strongheart. Like the dog, he was earning wealth that he could not spend for his own happiness. And his longing was for caresses and de- votion. He would give his life to one who would rub his head, It Boas had had any lurking thought of dazzling Mem into a mer- Acenary submission to his caprice, he ¢ never revealed it. He was not at all the vicious capl- talist she had read about and eeen so much film, bribing poor g¢éls to dishonor, He sent her flowerm but they were pretty and @ppeating rather than ex- pensive. He made no proffer of jew- elry, never suggested money. Life, she found, rarely ran true to fiction. ‘Mrs. Steddon was usually in the offing, and Boas may have thought that she was one of those canny mothers who try to force rich gal- lants {nto matrimony. But when Mrs. Steddon was out of sight Mem was a little more elusive than ever. Boas revealed to her phases of op- ulence that she had never imagined. ‘The most striking thing about them to her was that they were not so very opulent, after all. His home was somber and dull, his servants old neighbors, his own manner humble. ‘His art gallery, when he led her and her mother into it, was severe, 8 mere background for paintings, and after all, not many paintings there. Mem knew nothing about the virtues of what she saw and she cried out equally over the things he had pought by mistake and the happy The Boas automobile, which carried them to and from their hotel, was a good car, but ex- ceedingly quiet. Mem had ridden in ‘a dozen in Los Angeles that were far more gorgeous. te might have won Mem via pity, if he had not tried to win her from her career. He was a monopolist by inheritance, and he wanted all there was cf Mem. He promised her everything that money could buy or love could pro- pose, with tho eae Eeetae that the money should not er own earn- ing, but his gift, and that the public jhould see her no more. z Mrs. SteCdon was all for him. She pointed out to Mem how good the Lord was in sending her such a catch —she emphasized the good she could do with millions—the poor she could feed and |clothe—the ‘churches she could adorn or build—the missions she could endow. But a parent's rec’ ommendation {s the poorest character a lover can possess, Contradictory ‘torments wrung Mem's heart, She was human enough to covet ease and the hauteur of money, but she had outgrown the ability to enjay. or even enéure, the old-fashioned para- sitism of the woman who takes and takes and takes. Girls had decided thet {t was no longer flattery or good wooing to be offered ia life of nonentity. Who wanted to be anybody's silly Curly- locks?—and accept aa & compliment the promise, ‘Thou shalt not wash dishes nor yet feed the swine, but sit en @ cushion and sew @ fine seam and feed upon strawberries, sugar and cream.” Boas had one terrific rival, the many-herded monster. It fs not hard to seduce an actress from the stage, but it ts hard tokeep her off. Tnere is a courtship that the public alone can offer, and no one man can give her as much ap- plause as a nightly throng. That form of polyandry is irresitible to most of the women who have been lucky enough to get on the stage or the screen and to win success there. One day Bermond summoned ber to his New York office and said “How about getting to work again? T've got a great story for you and they need you at the studio, On your way back ou can make personal ap: pearances at four or five cities, but it's back on the job for ou, eh? That's right! That's a good girl!’ Bermond offered Mem neither ease nor devotion—except devotion to her publication. He offered her toil and wages, harcships and discontent sleep! malaise and bad press no- tices. , And she could have flung her arms about him and kissed him. Austin Boas was at the station to ace Mem off. For his last fling he filled her drawing-room with flowers poor things that drooped and died and were flung from the platform by the porter, Long after thelr spell had been for gotten, the sad gaze of Boas aa he cried good-by haunted her. It was her increasing regret that she could not love everybody and give herself to everybody who wanted her. cing unable to distribute herself to the multitudes by any miracle as of the loaves and fish she withhe’d herself and seattered photographs by the hundred thousand. She had murmured to Boas, “When I make another picture or two I may decide to be sensible, and then—if you are atill—” "T shall be wattini said Boas And he gave up with a groan. “Marry me anyway and have your career, too. I'll put my money into your company. I'll back you to the Himit. I'll—" That staggered her, but before she cou'd even think up an answer the train started and divorced her from him—for the present, st least. At Buffalo and at Cleveland she Paused to come before huge audiences and prattle her little piece. When she reached Chicago she found await- ing her a long letter from the man- ager of the moving-picture house in Calverly. He implored her to visit her old home town and make an ap pearance at his theater. He promised that everybody would be there, This was success indeed! To ap- pear in New York was triumph, but to appear in her native village was almost a divine vengeance, | She had resolved to leave her moth- er at Calyerly, in any case. Mrs. Steddon was wearying of adventure and her heart had endured too long an absence from her husband and the other children, The younger sister, Gladys had done her best to take her mother’s place but Mrs. Steddon’s real career was her family and Mem knew that she was aching to get back to it. And so one morning they crossed the Mississippi again. At Qurlington they must leave the train, walt two hours, and then ride south to Cal verly. As Mem and her mother steppef down from their car in Iowa, both gasped and clutched. The Reverend Doctor Steddon was @ few yards away from them, study- ing the off-getting passengers. “Let's see if he knows us, ered Mrs. Steddon, with a r girlishnes: “Let's! said Mem, They knew him instantly, of course. He wore the same suit they had left him in, and the only change they could descry was a little more white in a little less hair. But he did not know them at all. It amused them to pass him by and note his casual giance at the smart hat and the polite traveling suit of | his wife. He had expected a change lin his daughter, but he was probably braced for something loud and gaudy. Mem looked really younger than when she left him. She had then been a Premature old maid, dowdy and re- pressed. Now, for all her girlishness, she was a lithe siren, her eyes know: ing, her too expressive body carried learnedly in clothes that boasted of what they hid, boasted subtly but all the more effectively. In spite of the emphatic modesty of her clothes, Mem had lived so long among butterflies and orchids and had striven so desper- ately for expression, that she did not realize how emphatic she was. So her father passed her by. When Mrs. Steddon turned and hailed him in a voice that was gladder and more tender than she knew, he whirled with his heart bounding. Then ho paused and stared, befud- died, at the tailor-made model running toward him. He knew all about the other world | and how to get there, but he was lost jin the cities of the earth. When his wife rushed into the arms he had flung open to her voice, he was al- most afraid to close them about her. He felt a bit like Joseph with the captain's wife clinging to him. When he stared across her trim shoulders and took in “the sumptuous Delilah floating” toward him with his daughter’s countersign, “Poppa!” he Was aghast at her beauty. She was ungod!y beautiful. Long aga, when she had sung in the choir, he had noted with alarm an. almost indecent fervor in her hymning. Now she had learned to release all the fragrances and allure- ments of her being like a Pandora's box broken open, And now he felt that he ought to avert his gaze from her too lovely, too luscious charm, He shut his eyes, in- tead and drew her into his bosom with one long arm, and his wife with | the other. And they heard bis hungry | beating heart groaning: i ‘I thank Thee, O God! Now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace.” But neither the Lord nor His fam- ily granted that'prayer. His two chil- dren chattered at once, Both seemed children to him. His wife had turned time far back; she looked fairer than he had ever known her; end her trav- elng hat hid her gray-white hair, Poor thing! She had never known till this year the rapture of being fashionabl had never dared, never understood how, to look her best. Hiding under his high chin, Mem begged his forgiveness for all the heartaches she had caused him. 5S! pt on his white bow tie, twisting a button on his coat and pouring out her regret for dragging his wife away from him and causing them to quar- enick- e to don bad never a chance with her. His own tears pattered down on her hat. The blessed damozel “heard” his tears, “They would probably spot the crown. Mem said that it was a orime for her to have taken her ‘mother on east and left him alone, but he pro- tested: “D'you suppose I wanted my little girl traveling in those wicked cities all_by herself?” —— This gladdened Mem exquisitely. It showed that, for all her wanton ca- reer, she was still in her father's eyes an innocent child who must be pro- tected from the world. Of course, it was, rather, the world that nceced to be protected from her. But she ‘would not disturb his sweet delusion. He said he wished he might have gone along and seen great cities he had never seen. All citles were Car- cassones to him. He spoke of the anonymous benefactor, the conscience stricken stranger who had sent him money through Doctor Bretherick. But he could not use that money for travel; it was for the church, and he sighed, “The good man has forgot- ten to send the last installment as he promised.” Mem gave a start and had almost said: “I forgot all about it in the rush of leaving. I'll give it to you now.” She checked herself so abrupt that she was not quite sure that she had not spoken, She seemed to hear the echo of her words. Her father was called away for a moment to speak to an old parish: joner, and Mem said to her mother: “This is exactly what we call a situation’ in the business, The au- dience knows something the princl- pal actor doesn't know. If poppa had found out that I was the remorso- ful gentleman he'd have dropped dead.” He came back with the parishioner, who had begged for the honor of an introduction to his famous daughter. ‘The old man had once wished that she ad died before she wear so wrong, but now he was plainly very glad indeed that she had been spared. He fluttered like a hen whose duck- ing had swum the pond and come back to the wing. ‘The parishioner moved on at last, it. Doctor Steddon was afraid to ask his daughter the details of her new life, lest she should tell him. She could not think of much to say that would be certain not to shock him. The reunion was too blissful to be risked. ‘At length, a very long length, the south-bound train Crew in and took them aboard. They watched the landscape and indulged in flurries of smal talk that rushed and dled like \faws of wind on the river. Now it was the Mississippi that streamed south in a burly leisure, while the lew noisily. train fl 2 en sce ‘And finally Calverly came the track and stopped at the hice ‘The place shocked Mem by its Gp biness and its pettiness. ‘When she left it she had never seen @ city and she was afraid of her home town. Now her eyes were acquainteci with the cyclopean architecture of New York, the gardened mansions ot Pa adena, and the maelstrom streets o! 0. Bera the was as shy before ee crowds that walted for her as they 0 her. The mayor had come down to give her welcome. He was @ raga tied as the sheriff in a western movie, ut he was the village's best, and he by his largest words in @ little speech, fas soon as he could push through : mob of Steddon Saree rae je- Mem and their mo! a Mia oye of the Calverly Ca, pitol, with its capacity of 200, Saari ed the mayor aside and claimec Mrs. Steddon and his prize. , riage for her and @ room at pie tel in case the parsonage was owed, SS podtar Steddon grew Isaian as he stormed “My daughter stays in her own verte brought Mem snuggling to his elbow, and from that sanctuary she greeted her old Sunday-school teach- er, several of tho public-school teach: ers, an old negro janiton, & number of young men and women who called rel over her. These tears, these gestures pathos were endearing her to t! mjultitddes, who saw her half the time through the radiant dimness of | their_own te: Poor Doctor Sted of her by her first name. ‘Two or three of the girls had been b of the town and she looked on them with awe for their beauty, their fine clothes, and their fast repu tation: Now they seemed startling! Repair Calls Served Your home js not too far away, and the weather is never too bad for our repair- men to reach you promptly in an emer- gency. of that sort. We are glad to give special service At all times, we have a sufficient stock of repair material to meet any need. Good tools, and honest workmanship guarantee a satisfactory job. Often in making repairs, new fixtures are a matter of real economy, combination faucets, Modern fixtures, showers, control valves and similar small fixtures are cheap- er than constant repairs to old ones. our plumbing experts Let advise you. Schank Plumbing & Heating Co. 359 East Second Street Phone 711 Casper Sunday Morning Cribune BY RUPERT dubby, guwky, silly; and now the Ts was theirs, em noted that her own were dubbler, gawkier, sillier rire except Gladys, who had matured amazingly, and in whose eyes and mouth and {ll-furbished roundnesses Mem’s experience saw a@ terrifying latent voluptuousnesa and a capacity for fierce emotions. The first resolve Mem made was to buy her sisters alothes worthy of them and of her own high rank. -Just a8 she was stepping into a Waiting automobile Doctor Bretherick came along, happened by with @ very badly acted pretense of ‘ surprise. Mem told him that she wanted to come over and have him look at her throat. She coughed for convictfon's sake and he warned her that there was a lot of flu goin’ about. The car moved off and she felt as if she were passing through a wooden toy town. Her father's church looked about to fall over. It was not half so big as she remembered it and dis- mally in need of paint, And the home! Was it possible that the old fence was so near tho porch, and the porch g0 small? Once it had been a grot of romantic gloom, deep and fatal enoug' to bring about her damnation. With a sudden stab she remem: bered Elwood Farnaby and the far- off girl that he had loved too madly well in that moonlit embrasure. How little and pitiful that Mem had been! There was a toyish unimportance in her very fall, the debacle of a mari- onette world, . But Elwood Farnaby was great by virtue of his absence and his death. He was a hero now with Romeo and Leander and Abelard and the other geniuses of passion whose shadgws hat grown gigantic- ally long, in the sunset of a tragic HUGHES She stumbled as she mounted the steps, and there was a misery in her breast. ‘Then the house opened its door and took her tn, into its Lil!ipu- Han hall and stairway. She laid off her hat and gloves in the porlor, with the dining room alongside. It was Uke a caricature of homeliness. Just Such @ set had been rejected at the studio because it was a burlesque on such a home. Wonderment at the hallucinations of her youth and gratitude even for the disaster that had hurled her out of the jail filled her heart. She never acted more desperately than in her mimicry of the emotions of rapture at her coming home, She insisted on helping to get the midday dinner. Gladys protested, but Mem was frantic for something to keep her hands busy, and for littte things to talk about, lest her dismay at the humbleness of her beginnings insult the poor wretches who had known no better. Her mother was having a similar battle, though the return was easier since she had never gone so° far afield. At the dinner table the old preach- er's humble grace for the bounty of the Lord sadcened Mem again. The poor old dear had suffered every hardship and known nothing of lux- ury, yet he was grateful for “bounty!” After the table was cleared and the @ishes washed and put away, Mem escaped on the pretext of a visit to the doctor, She was waylaid by old friends on the walks and hailed from condescension in the manner of a few matrons an@ a few embittered belles, but Mem knew enough to take this as the unwitting tribute of env punishment for their ardors. |ail the porches. There was a little| of his wife and closed the door on Mem. ‘Then he flung up his hands and cried: : “Well!” He shook his shamgy poll and mumbled a wide grin, and repeated half a dozen Well's of varied mean- ing. before he exclaimed: “Well, if I'm not a success as an author, managen, and perfoocer of A-l talent, show me one. Our little continuity has certainly worked out beyond the fondest dreams of author and etar.” His star took less pride in it than he. Somehow Mem drew humi!iation stead of pride. This room had seen her first confession of gullt. In this room Elwood Farnaby had made his last battle for iife. A horrifying thought came to Mem: if he had not died, she would have become his wife and the mother of his premature child. She would have been a laughnis stook. aterial for ugly whispers about the village. And she would have been the shab- biest of wives even here. She would never have known fame or ease or wealth. “What a scenario it would make!” she thought, in spite of her wrath against herself for harboring such an |deny her mind to {t, Suppose a infamous thought. But she could not story were written around her life: a girl in her plight has a choice of two careers; in one her lover lives, makes partner of hie humble ob- scurity and poverty, and she becomes a shabby, lifebroken down; in the other her lover dies and she goes on alone to wealth, beauty and the heights of splendor, Which would from the lowlineas of ber origin, in-|* let him live, a vampire to destroy her soul? She felt a compulsion to penance and a humbling of herself at the grave of her thwarted husband. She was afraid to walk through the Streets to the cemetery, and she asked the doctor to drive her thither in the Ittle car he now affected. He consented and rose to lead the way. She checked him and took out her purse. ‘I want to give you the install- ment JF forgot. .of the conscience PAGE SEVEN Hollywood Lif =< money. Please get it to papa as soon as you can. And here's a little extra.” The doctor took the billg with a curious smile. She seemed to feel his sardonic perplexity as she mused aloud along a well-thought path, “Tf I had been a fallen woman If coulCn't have saved papa’s church from ruin. How do you explain it? What's the right and wrong of it alr The olf doctor shook his head: Continued next Sunday Broadway (Subway Express NEW.YORK CITY Near Riverside Drive: Central Park, Theatres and Shopping Sections Dinner de Luxe $1.35 serve: in Blue Room end Grill M. P. MURTHA, Men she choose The very hesitation was She found Dr. and Mrs, Bretherick waiting for her. ‘The doctor got rid murderous. Yet how would she choose? Would she kill her lover or MARSEILLES at 103d St. Station st Doar) EAST TERRACES There is a quality about East Terraces that denotes dignity and grace. 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