Evening Star Newspaper, April 22, 1923, Page 74

Taught by One Who Was Called, Life Itself, He Became Something More Than Leader Among Doctors. HEY were to have been mar- ried. in & month's time. The brass plate with the doubls ; inscription, “Df. Welter Uloth, Dr. Frances Uloth,” was already fas- zened.to the newly varnished door of the new house, and overy evening they made a deliberate detour to ad- mire this sllent witness to thelir com- ing partnership. Thelr marriage had seemed inevit- able—both were so brilliant, so pas- slonately attached to their profe sion; both outstanding personalities with all the magnetism of an uncom promising sincerity. Dr. Uloth went up to the operating ward where he knew Frances Wil- mot had been working. She came out as he reached the door. They walked together down the passage. In the hospital their attitude toward each other was rigidly impersonal, but he was too keen a psychologist not to be aware of some emotional trouble in her apart from the day’'s perplexi- tles. He took her arm and pressed it. Emotion frightened and irritated him. She drew away quietly. “Paula Finlay s dead,” she said, “five min- utes 2go. I do not think she ought to have died.” - Sometning in her tone galled him. “We couldn’t do’ more than our best. From the point of view of society— we might as well admit it frankly— she is better dead. “She knew. She told me. in your face, & sort of disgust and reluctance. - She. sald, ‘Of course, it's true.’ But it broke her. She wouldn’t fight.” Her low, beautiful voice had lost its steadiness. They were passing nis private office, and they went in. e was in that mood when & struggle is welcome. “I'm sorry if I betrayed myself.” “Probably it was what she elf. Rightly, too. We shut criminals and lunatics. There are neople who are not less dangerous. One can't regret them.” “People like Paula Finl ¥er."” “What do you know about Paula Finlay?” “'Quite enough.” ‘0 pass judgment?” “1¢ vou ltke to put it that wav.” He became aware of a prolonged silence. He Jooked up. She had taken off her engagement ring and jaid it on the top of his papers. The one thought that flashed clear of his atente anger was that the action was childishly theatrical. “I em & mere mortal,” she said. “I don't see how & mere mortal and you, who consider yourself above mortal iimitations, can work in partnership.” PR “ way alone up 2 steep and cruel woad to success. When some hope or other was shattered, he simply put nis heel on his desire and went on. So that he left the hospital that night without & sigh, without conscious suffering. and without protest. The epieode was finished. He resigned from the hospital. The new house was transformed into & nursing home of his own, where patients came to him eagerly. His profession became .his master and his religion. Oniy toward nightfall; when his brain wearied, he flung his work aslde and stormed out of the house, walking rapldly westward, to the strects which never sleep. 1t was on one such night that Keith MeManus saw him and laid hold of him. McManus and he had roomed Logether In their desperate Edinburgh days. Their friendship had seemed then a thing of necessity rather than oice, for Uloth had despised MeManus for his inferior abilities— but at least it endured. They met now as though days and not years had separated them. “I dldn't even know you were in England,” Uloth said. “Why haven't you looked me up? Where have you been? You've been ill anyway. McManus shrugged his stooping shoulders. “Oh, ves, I've been pretty bad. Studying bugs in a South African swamp. I've been in London 5 week, drifting round. Couldn't make up my mind to look up any one, not even you. That's how I am— fed up, up to the teeth.” “Yes, I can see.” “Got me diagnosed aiready? Well. i's a damnable state, Uloth.” He laughed miserably. Uloth was look- ing across to the “Pavilion” opposite and mechanically spelling out the iiluminated sign. “Gyp Labelle—Gyp Labelle.” He heard himself answer- ing a question. “No—no, that's & rumor. I killed & patient and lost a wife on the same day. I'm a free lance—quite free. What do you want to do? We neither of us need count the barbees now. Make a night of it? T've not done such a thing in my lite—Iit's probably what you want.” McManus, too, was staring across the road with his dead eves. “Good Lord, if T only knew! I'd be s0 thank- ful to want something.” His voice cracked. Uloth took him by the arm, much as he had taken Frances Wilmot by the arm months ago. “We'll try first what the devil can do for you,” he cried ALTER ULOTH had fought his . * ok x % BRUPTLY, the orchestra caught hold of Uloth. It was playing =omething that he had heard before, at restaurants whers he had gone with Frances Wilmot. The stage, set with a stereotyped drawing room, was empty, as the curtain rose. Two dead-white hands, loaded with em- aralds, held the black hangings over the center doorway, then parted them bruskly, letting through the brilliant, shining figure of a woman. She stood thers, her fair head with its monstrous crest of many-colored ostrich plumes flaming against the dead background. Her dress, impu- dently scanty, showed the lines of & body almost too slender and supple as a rapler. But she wore jewels that clothed her. And each one of them had its romance, its scan- dal. It was part of the show that she should flaunt them. She was pretty by force of some seoret physical magnetism. ‘“Hullo, every one!” she sald, tentatively, gally. She began to laugh then, as she laughed every night at the same mo- ment, spontaneously, shrilly, help- lessly, until suddenly she had them. It was llke a whirlwind. Even Tloth felt it at his throdt, a choking, senseless laughter. He knew that McManus was leaning forward, flung headlong out of his apathy, almost angry. She saw | She broke into the of muslc: “I'm Gyp Labelle, Come dance with me: You'll dance to my tune, ‘Whatever it be—" She couldn’t sing. And after that one doggerel verso she made a ges- ture of good-humored contempt and danced. It was a wild gymnastic, the delirious capering of a gutter urchin caught by a jolly tune. A long-haired youth jumped onto the stage from the stage box and swung her about him and over his shoulder, so that her plumes swept the ground and the great rops of pearls made a chain of white light about them both. “Those pearls” Uloth said to his companion, “Prince - Rudolph gave them to her. And then he shot him- self. They belonged to the family. He had no right, of course, but she ‘wanted them. McManus stirred impatiently. dia not answer. Uloth had a queer conviction that secretly, in their hearts, the audi- ence danced with her. “I'm Gyp Labeile Come dance with me * * .7 ! Something had come into the the-| ater that had not been there before. | Nothing mattered so much. The main | business was to have a good time somehow. not to worry or care. She had whirled catherine-wheel, faghion, head over heels, from end| to end of the stage, and stood with her thin arms stretched up straight! in a gesture of triumph, her mouth still parted in that curious, empty, expectant smile. The curtain fell. “I want to get out.” said McManus sharply. “It's this closeness.” The audience had begun to stream out. Two men who loitered in front of Uloth In the aisle exchanged laconic comments. “A llve wire, eh, what?" The face of the second man who spoke was bloated and full of a weary intelligence. “Life iteelf, my itselr.” incessant din He | dear fellow; life| * % ok x LOTH took a month's holiday and | McManus went with him down to the house on the Scotch moors where | he was to have spent his honeymaonvi For a week they tramped the hills together, stalked deer and fished in! the salmon river. McManus was like a man who hugs a secret pleasure— whose eyes are continually turned in-| ward on a desire. ! On the eighth day he disappeared He left a note behind him. He had to go back to town. Uloth was not to bother. Uloth followed in three days. At McManus' lodging house he found a room littered like that of some yvoung fop, with half-opened boxes, new suits, shining unworm shoes and boots. On the mantelpiece Uloth found a letter, which he read deliberately. The handwriting was a woman' large and sprawling. and signed with a single, undecipherable initial. It agreed to a meeting at the Carlton before the “turn.” Uloth waited in the Carlton lounge an hour later. Then he saw McManus before Le saw the woman, though for every one else she obscured McManus utterly. She walked a few paces ahead, a bizarre, fantastic figure, her head with its crown of diamonds, lft- ed audaciously, the same fixed smile of childish pleasure on her painted face. i McManus walked at her heels. The well-cut evening clothes suited his lean figure. Though he was thirty- five, he looked like a boy on the threshold of his first romance. Uloth was overwhelmed and trans- fixed by an insensate anger. This woman had trapped his friend. She could not have overlooked Uloth. He stood right in front of her and his height and his rugged face must inevitably have drawn her attention to him. Her eyes, blue as a kitten's, met his with a kind of bonhomie as of one who expects and accepts admiration. The uncompro- mising enmity that replied seemed to check her. She hesitated, then passed on, still smiling, but mechani- cally McManus brushed against Uloth without recognition. From that moment Uloth was po: sessed by a purpose. McManus, his friend, was not to end like those others. He chose his table so that he faced her. McManus turned in her direc- tion as though hypnotized. Twice she met Uloth's eyes, still with a faintly puzzled amusement. Then she spoke to.McManus, laugh- ingly, and McManus turned, and a moment later he came across. He was radiant. “What luck your being here, old man! I didn't know you went in for frivolity of this sort. Come over and join us. We're just having a bite be- fore the show. You remember Mlle. Labelle, don’t you?" Uloth left his table at once, manner composed and suave. “It's Dr. Uloth, my old captain,” McManus said. “We don’t need to in- troduce you, mademoiselle.” “Ce cher docteur (‘e don't like me),” she complained pathetically to McManus. “’'E sit opposite and glare like a 'ungry tiger. Bellieve me, I grow quite cold with fear. Tell me why you don’t likek me, monsieur.” “He was only waiting to be asked,” McManus broke in, laughing. She jerked a jeweled thumb at him, appealing to Uloth. “’'E 'as cheek, that young man. 'E send In 'is card to my dressing room, saying ‘e got to meet me. As though any one could Just walk in She leaned across to Uloth, speaking earnestly. “You saw me dance, hein? Monsler le docteur is an artist, perha 'E know I can’t dance at all. Nor sing. Nor nozzings. Just enjoy myself. You think I don't deserve all I get, hein?" “I think,” 1d Uloth, smiling, “that there are others in your profession who are less fortunate, mademolselle.” “Zat's true. I 'ave been lucky. I shall always be lucky. Everybody knows that. Zey say, ‘Our Gyp, she will have a good time at er funeral” No, mo, Monsieur Uloth, I will not drink. If I drink I might dance ‘ere on the table—and ze company is so ver’ respectable. Obviously she knew that the se- verely elegant men and women on either hand watched her with a covert, chilly hostility. But there was something oddly simple in her acceptance of their attitude. Therein 1ay her power. She was herself. She didn't care. She rose to go at last, C\ his THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C. APRIL 22, 1923—PART 5. “I'm coming with you,” McManus said quietly. She shrugged her shoulder; “Eh bien—what can I do? Zey are all the same. Good-bye, Monsieur le docteur. You scare me stiff. But I llke you" * ¥ k¥ ROBABLY she had expected him. Uloth followed the ugly old woman down the passage gorgeous and dim with an expensive orlental- ism. The room was huge and square- bullt. The walls were hidden under eastern embrolderies and silk divans were set haphazard on the mosalc floor. In the center a fountain of the modern-primitive school, banked with flowers, played noisily. There was something rather magnificent In the room's absurdity. She herself sat on the edge of her “I AM A MERE MORTAL.” SHE SAID. “I DON'T KN fountain and fed a gorgeous macaw. But as Uloth entered, she sprang up and ran to him. “Ab, it's droll—I think about you— just when you ring up. I wonder what you want of me,” she remarked She went back to her place on the fountain edge, sitting amidst the flowers. “Do people usually want things of you? he asked. “Always—all ze time." “And you give 8o much? She eved him serious e what I ‘ave to give.” ‘And take what you can get?” “And you, Monsleur—?" The absoluteness of his detestation made it possible for him to laugh with her. “My fees are reasonable, at any rate. I've helped a good many people for nothin 8till, you make experi- ments—and sometimes leetle mis- takes. ‘Ze operation was a complete success, but ze patfent died.’ I know. Some of mine die, to “That Rudolph, for instance?” She lifted the chain of pearls about her neck. “That canard! You think ‘e could give me these? °E couldn't 've given me a chain of pink coral. I could ‘ave bought 'im and ‘is funny little kingdom with my dress money. No, my friend. My agent, ’e set that story going. “Tell me what you little ‘ome.” “You don’t care what I think,” he retbrted. “As a matter of fact, it reminds me of a quaint old custom. When our early ancestors were build- ing a particularly important house, they buried a few of the less impor- tant citizens alive under the founda- tions.” 8he offered him her cigarette case. Suddenly she laughed out with an unfeigned enjoyment. “I see. My victims, hein? make a leetle joke, monsieur. why €0 ver serious. ing you, am I?” “No. It would be a mistake to try. Nor are you going to bury my friend McManus. It will be much better business to let him go.” “Let 'im go? But I want 'im to go. Yesterday I would not see 'im. I didn’t want to see 'im.” “Sufficient reason. But about two months ago I lent him three thousand pounds. He bought you presents, outrageous for a man in his position.” “Some one 'ave to buy them,” she explained good-humoredly. “I don't ask about position. It is not polite.” “Last night he came to my rooms. He has been very {ll. He has become dangerous. He threatened to shoot il “Well, before ‘e knew me, 'e want to shoot 'imself. He is gettin’ better decidedly, that young man.” Her Infectious laughter caught him. He wanted to laugh, too, and then thrust her laughing, empty face down into the water of her comic fountain till she died. There were people who were better dead. He had said so. “Give him up,” he sald, quietly. “You make me laugh” she re; torted. “This Keith, I can't give ‘im up. 'E don’t belong to me. I neffer ask for ’'im. Take 'im away. Keep 'im away. I don't want better.” Uloth stirred uneasily. He knew now that his hatred was apart from his friend, a bitter, personal hatred. “It ca be done like that. You can’t take drugs away from a drug flend at one swoop. All I ask is that you should let him down gently— treat him as a friend till he gets his sive think of my You But T am not bury- " she said, I can’t be bothered. I was born in ze gutter—I crawl out of ze gutter by myself—I keep out of Ze gutter—always. And I don't cry and wring my hands when people try to kick me back again. I look after myself. Monsieur Ulot’ and all these others, they must look after them- selves, too. They want fun and life from me—and I give them that. ‘When they want more, they cane— ‘OW, ¥ou say?—get out.” * 1 He bowed. wasted your famous.” She kissed her fingers to him £ood-humored farewell * * X x HAT night McManus tried to force an entrance to the Kensington house, and the old woman, seconded by a Japanese servant, flung him down the steps into the arms of a policeman, who promptly arrested him. Uloth bailed him out. The morning papers were full of it. It was one more feather.in Gyp Labelle's cap. McManus sailed for South Africa with a medical missfon— to dle, as he sald—but thrée months later Uloth received a photograph of his wife, a fair-haired, wide-eyed, slightly bovine-looking creature. Uloth kept the picture on the table Tve in- “Thank you. time. You are IN PAR’ in his consulting room. He believed that it amused him. It was in the same ironical mood that he consented to receive her. She had driven up to his door and sent up her card with the penciled in- scription, “Me voll: She splen- didly outrggeous. She mu!&ve put on every jewel that she coyld carry. Her dress was as matural to her as &ay plumage to a bird of paradise. ‘Ow kind of you to see me!” You ‘ave a little time for me?” she said. “Ten minutes” he replied. “I was sure that sooner or later you would turn up,” he said. She looked at him with a rather wistful surprise. *‘Ow clever of you! You knew? Why, yes. I say to my- self, ‘One of these days 1 pay that terrible docteur a visit’ But I ‘ave been so0 busy. We rehearse Mad- amoiselle Pantalonne.’ The first night tomorrow. You come? I send you a ticket.” “Thanks. Your form of entertain- ment doesn't amuse me—except path- ologically.” “Pathologically — " she “'Ow ‘orrid that sounds! like me, hein, doctor?” “That surprises you?’ “That surprise me ver much,® she admitted frankly. She picked up the portrait and examined it with an un- conscious impertinence. “You like ‘er? she asked. “Zat kind of woman?" echoed. You dan't SHE STOOD CREST OF THERE, HER FAIR HEAD MANY.COLORED OSTRICH PLUMES AGAINST THE DEAD BACKGROUND. =~ “Idon’t know,” he sald. “I've never mwet her.” “She s not your wite?’ “She is Keith McManus' wife.” It was evident that she had almost forgotten. “McMdinus? Ah ouf, I am glad. She is the right sort for ‘Im.” “The ten minutes are almost up, he sald. “I presume you came here to consult me.” He knew that she had come because he had tantalized her. . She laughed, shrugging her shoul- ders. “You are an ‘orrible old doc- teur. 1 wonder, 'ave you ever 'ad & good time in your life—ever laughed like I do—from ze 'arz? Well, I got to give you three guineas, so I'll ‘ave an {llness—sore throat—now—you know about throats, hein?" “My speolalty,” he said. “Bien. I 'ave a little sore throat. ‘E come and go. I smoke too much. But I ‘ave to smoke. It's no good what you He made her sit down in the white iron chair behind the screen and switched on the light. * ok ¥ % EN minutes later they sat oppo- site each other by his table. She was coughing and laughing and wip- ing her eyes. “C’est ridicule” she gasped. cule He waited. The power was his now. He could take his time. In that deliberation the woman in the hospital, Keith McManus and Frances Wilmot and a host of men who had gone under the chariot wheels had their devious, sinister parts. He be- came in his own eves the figure of the law, pronouncing sentence. “You do it on purpose” she said “You made me cough.” He arranged the papers on his table with precise hands. “Medical science,” he said, “is not an exact science. We doctors are never abso- lutely certain of anything until it is done. But speaking with that reser- vation, I have to tell you that you have three—at the outside four— months to live—" He waited again. She had begun to laugh, but' the laugh had broken in half. She had read his face. Aftera long interval she asked a question— “Ridi- ‘WITH ITS .MONSTROUS FLAMING s 1 RELEASE one word—almost inaudibly—and he nodded. “If you had come earlier one might have operated,” he sald. “But even so—it would have been doubtful.” S0 many men and women had re- ceived their final sentence here in this room, and each had met it in his own- way. Some had stormed and raved and pleaded. Some had risen to an impregnable dignity finer than their lives. One or two had laughed. And this woman—? He looked up at last. He thought— with & thrill not of pity—of a bird hit fn full flight and mortally hurt, panting its life out in the heather, its’gay plumage limp and disheveled. He could hear her breath, short and broken like the smothcred sobbing of a child. And yet he was aware, too, |that she was thinking—that she was | calling up secret reserves oftrength. ““Trofs mot: vie—c'est 1a mort— well—but I dga't feel 8o {ll—perhaps for a little month, hein? Then they can’t say I don’t do my bit.” He had no clue to her thought. T suffer much, mousfeu 'm afraid so. Though any one who attends you will do his bes eath so ugly—so sad— “Not always,” he said significantly. After all, it was true. She had been a beast of prey all her life. Only sentimentalists like Frances Wilmot could have held out a hand of pity and regret. She got up at last. He had given her time. She fumbled with her gold jeweled bag. She lald three guineas on his table. “That is ver little for 80 much,” she said. I think—when I can't go any more—I coms to your ‘ospital. You take me in, hein? I ‘ave a fancy—" “I can't prevent your coming if you want to. You would.be more in your element in your own home. Besides, there are regulation: You—your friends—won't 1ifle them.” She looked at him quickly, with & startled eagerness ‘Mes pauvre amis—I "ave 0 many—they won't un- derstand. - They say, ‘That's one of Gyp's little jokes’ They won't be- |lieve it. They won't @are.” : She gave him' Rer hand, and he touched it perfunctorily, It's as you like, of coufse. have only to let me know.” “You are ver kind.” He showed her to the door and rang the bell for the servant. The next morning he received a note from her and a.ticket for the first night of ‘Mademoiselle Pantalonne.’ ok ok % He was driven by a curl- You E went. osity to which were added an- {#er and disgust. He told himself, OW HOW A MERE MORTAL AND YOU CAN WORK t ERSHIP.” with a solitary, inhuman pride, that he alone of all that densely crowded theater could taste the full flower of her performance. He was like God, seeing behind the scenes. He forsaw the moment, perhaps before the toot- lights, she would break down. It will be {n all the papers. 8he would make use of her-own death as she had used Kefth McManus’ miserable infat- aation. And vet he was sick in heart and brain. He had begun to rexlize that no man' ean trample 6n his strongest instinots with impunity. Frances Wilmot's tace flickersd before his hot eyes like the light of & will o’ the wisp. Gyp Labelle stood between the cur- tains at the back of the stage in the familiar attitude, smiling with that foolish friendliness. He found himself clapping with the rest. He srew angry and afraid. He had worked too hard lately. The whole-business had got an unnatural hold over him. He got up to go and then realized that he was trying to escape. It was jolly music, too. And she was still the gutter-urchin, flinging herzelf about in the sheer joy of life. I With death capering at her heels! He ! watched her, waiting for some sign, the first faltering gesture. Or was it possible that she was too empty hearted to feel even her own tragedy, too shallow to suffer, too stupid to foresee. And yet he knew that in that heated, dusty atmosphere pain iteelf had set in—and he became aware that there was sweat on his own face. She was facing what every man and woman in that audience must face sooner or later. How? 8he, at any rate, danced as though there was nothing in the world but life. At the end the band broke into the old doggere!l gallop. “I'm Gyp Labelle—" She catherine-wheeled round the stage, sweeping it with her plumes, just as she had done that first night. And in two months’ time she would be dead. Y As the curtain fell she stood there in the footlights. He could see the pulse of pain in her throat. Her arms were raised joyously. And the next day he had a little note from her, written in a great, aprawling hand. She thought she had better reserve rooms in his hotel {n about a month's time for about & month. After that, no doubt, she would require less accommodation. A siily, little, fatuous note—in execre- able taste. Uloth took a month's ‘leave and spent it in the deserted house among the moors, tramping the hills in a haunted solitude, The live things that ran across his path—the quaint, furry hares and scurrying pheasants, the silhouette of a stag against the gray ekyline—had become the broth- ers and sisters of an infamous wom- an. His gun, leveled at a rabbdit sit- ting in cheery alertness amid the heather, sank under the pressure of inexplicabls pity. He had taught ‘himself to stand aloof from life. And now he was being dragged down into it. Its values, which he had learned to judge coldly and dispassionately, were shifting like sand. In these days the papers, in their frivolous columns, were full of Gyp Labelfe. It seemed that Gyp had quarreled with her manager—she had torn up her contracts and flung the scraps in his face. There were gay doings nightly in the Kensington hous A last fling perhaps—the reckle gesture of a worthless panlc-stricken soul—without dignity. EE E returned to town. He found that she had arrived at the nursing home with the hideous old woman &nd the macaw and a phono- graph. She had signed the register as Marie Dubols. she explained. with 2 name like that, voyon She was mych nearer the end than he had supposed possidle. The last BY L A.R. WYLIE. SRS . month had to be paid for. She lay very still under the gorgeous quilt she had brought with her. “Every one here promise not to tell,” she sald. “I'm just Marle Dubofs. Even ze undertaker—'e must not know.” He forced back the question which came instinctively to his lips. He had a conviction that he was fighting her for his sanity, for the very ground on which he had built his life, and that he dared not yvleld by so much as = kindly word. He did w lay in his power for her, with a heart shut and barred. She brought & little of her world and her whole outlook with her. On the last few days that she was able to sit up, she dressed herself in a gay mandarin’s coat. By the open fire the old woman embroidered an elaborate nightgown. “It's for my—what you call it—my shroud. You see, with ze blue rib- bons—blue—blue—zat's my color. As soon as 1 could speak, I ask for ze blue ribbons in my pinafore.” “I should have thought that now your mind might be better occupled,” he retorted with a brutal common- placeness. “Oh, but T ‘ave 'ad my talk with monsieur le cure. E and I are ze best of friends. 'E understand about ze blue ribbons. too clever, hein, monsieur le docteur?” “It seems 80," he sald scornfully. Once, at evening, Uloth came upon her with all her jewels spread about her—emeralds and pearls and dia- monds—twinkling amid the creases of her coverlet. She put her finger to her lips. “Sh! This i= ver solemn. my testament.” Bhe picked up each jewel in turn and looked at it, caressing it. And yet there was no bitterness and no regret in her farewell of them. The old woman, crouched in the chair be- side her, wrote toilfully on a slip of paper. “She make a list of all. They will be sold for the leetle children of Paris—the gamins—as I was—for a g0od. time—from Marle Dubols.” She beckoned him, and he came nearer sullenly. In her hand was a great pearl, Pour vous, monsieur. He shrank back. wear such things.” “For your wife, then.” “1 am not married. “But one day per'aps.” She looked at him with a wistful doubt. “Or per'aps It make you sad. It is not for that I gige it you. When you see it, you laugh—just as you laugh 'when I dance, because I dance 8o ver’ bad.” 8he lJaughed now, and then gray agony had her by the throat. She hid her face and he took the pearl from her, muttering. That night he let her suffer. He fled from her. He had begun defl- nitely to doubt his own sanity. As he tried to leave the house the old woman followed and caught hold of him. “She suffer too much, monsier. not right. I will not ‘ave it.” “I do my best,” he flung at her sav- agely. “And who are you to Inter- fere?” - “I am her mother.” He swung round to stare down into the lined and withered face. “Her mother? Why, good God—ehe treats you like a servant.” “Before others, monsieur le docteur. She is different—of different stuft And i T want to be with ‘er, it must be &s ‘er servant. That is our affair. But you are not kind. You let suffer too much. I will not ‘ave it She menaced him, and he wasaware of an incredible fear. “I will come at oncé,” he stam- mered. Later, when she slept her drugged sleep, he came back to look at her, and the old woman knelt beside her, bowed over her still hand, a rugged, motionless eMgy of grief. * ¥ % % T make “Noe—I don't It is HE was almost voiceless now. That she suffered hideously Uloth knew, but not from her. Before them all she bore herself gayly—yes gallantly. It was that gallantry of hers that nursed him, that would not let him rest or forget. And she was pitifully alone. The woman in the hospital had not been more forsaken. But every day the press man did his work, filling the| sossip columns with hints of wild, erratic dotngs. An f{llustrated paper produced her full-length portrait. She sat amid the flowers of her absurd fountain and her hand was ralsed In a gesture of laughing farewell. Over the top was written, “Gyp Off to Pastures New,” and underneath a message, which was reprinted in all the daily papers. “I want this way to thank the friends who have been so kind to me. We have had good times together. I am going for a long holiday, but one day, think, I dance for you again. I love you all. Au revoir.” He gave her the paper without comment. He had to hold it up for her to see—very close. And then suddenly his anger purst from him. “Why do you allow this silly pre- tense?” He could feel the old woman turn toward him like a wild beast pre- paring to spring. He had to bend down to catch the choking, suffering volce.” *We ’'ave—such good times. And zey come ‘ere—all those kind people— who ‘ave laughed 8o much—ana bring flowers—ard pretend it is not true— and they won't believe—they won't dare—' She tried to speak more clearly, clinging to his hand for the first time in the sheer agony of her effort. “Vous voyes—for them—I am —ze good times. Zey come to me for good times—when zey are too sad— when life too ‘ard for them—and zey cannot belleve any more—sat ze good times come again—zey think of me. ‘Voyons Gyp—she’ ave a good time always—she dance at her own funeral’ And if sey see me ‘ere—like this—zey go away—and thing, ‘Grand dieu, have you come to that, too?— and szey ory—-" Her hand let go its hold suddenly. They sent for him that night. There was a bright light burning by her bedside. SBhe wore a pretty lace cap trimmed with pale-blue ribbons. She smiled at Uloth, but she wasonly half conscious. Toward midnight she whispered something that he could not under- stand. But the old woman lifted her- self heavily from her knees and went over to the phonograph. The nurse, who endeavored to stop her, was e thrust aside. Uloth himself made a gesture. “Let her be,” he said. The needle scratched under shaking hand. “I'm Gyp LaBelle— Come dance with me— He knew that she was smiling And suddenly the crushing burden of his heart lifted. Strange and diffi. cult tears came, and with them a strange peace. She had won. He loved her—as beneath the fret of pas- sion McManus and all of them had loved her—for what she was, for what she had to give. He loved her more simply still, as in rare moments of their lives men love each other, saying, “This is my brother, this is my sister.”” From its helght of arro- gance his spirit flung itselt down in thankful humility before a mysteri- ous, incalculable Good. He could hear the jolly bang-bang of the drum and the whoo of a trum pet. He could see her catherine. wheeling round the stage, and tha man with the bloated face and tragic intelligent eyes. “Life itself, my dear fellow. Lify itselr.” And she was dead. Frances Wilmot married Uloth year later. With her he became 80 thing more than a great doctor. I had, at any rate, ceased to be all i all in his own eyes. (Copyright. Al thy ghts Reserves Tons of Pennies. VW/HEN one puts his penny into tin slot and gets his correct weigh: or a piece of chewing gum or of chocolate, he seldom thinks of the thousands of other pennles dropped that very hour into other machines. The companies that own these auto- matic venders receive tons of pen- nies, which they turn back into c! culation through the United States subtreasury, for banks refuss to handle pennies unless they are counted and packed in rolls, and the slot machine companies would re- quire so large a force of clerks ta do it that their profits would be seri- ously diminished. The problem of counting pennles for deposit in the subtreasury in New York is simple. They are weighed like 80 many bullets on a scale that registers, not pounds and ounces but dollars and cents. The collections from the slot ma- chines, however, do not go dir to the weighing machines. The coins must first be sorted, for they are mixed with all kinds of refuse, lcad welghts, buttons, bangles and coun- terfeits, put into the slot either in a spirit of mischief or to defraud the company. The boys who do the sort- ing wear antiseptic gloves. The refuse from the sorting process is usually valueless, although now and then gold pieces, bits of jewelry or goldand silver charms, engraved with tender inscriptions, find their way into the iron throat of the machine that is Intended to swallow only cop- per cents. Hundreds of foreign pen- nies and many coins of higher value are found in the machines, put there through carelessness. So, the owners of the penny-in-the- slot machines have more trouble with the actual money they recelve than men in other businesses. On lower Broadway it is no uncommon sight to geo a wagonload of pennles going to the treasury; in appearance it is only a load of canvas sacks, but really it 1s & clumsy-embarrassment of riches. Queer 0il Wells. ACODRDING to an American oil ex- pert, one of the strangest oil flelds In the world is the Higashiyama dis- trict, on the Sea of Japan. Coolies dig a2 hole with a pick and shovel and crib or brace the walls as they do down. Their wives pull up'the dirt and the shale. Some of those hand- dug wells are 70 feet deep, and ths natives pump air into them with an old-fashioned blower. Generally there 1s little or no gas, but sometimes = ‘workman is overcome, and then he is drawn up and a fresh worker goes down In his place. Just before reach- Ing the pay sand the gas is often en- countered, and it is not uncommon for the coolles to be overcome. While they are being revived others con- tinue the work. The fleld covers about sixteen square miles, and in it are about 800 producing wells. The largest of them produces about ten koku a day. A koku i3 equivalent to about forty- eight gallons. Other wells produce not more than five gallons a day. In the district are a number of ltue refining plants that treat from five gallons to fifty koku a day. In the smaller refineries it is com- mon practice for the head of a family to go to the wells with two of the familiar five-galion oil tins hanging from a yoke. He carries the tins, filled with crude ofl, from five to seven miles to his little home refinery, and the whole family then turns to and helps refine it. After the process is over the children take the oil to residential districts nearby and peddle it from house to house in one and two sen lots—equivalent to half a cent in American money. The Busiest Spots. JT Is said that the most crowded spot in the world for five and a half days of the week is that small tract covering one acre, bounded by the British Royal Exchange, the Bank of England and the Mansion House (city hall) of the city of London. ‘This has been described as “the city's nerve oenter.” In the course of each day no fewer than 500,000 parsovs pass and repass, together with 50,- 000 vehicles. And the busiest corner of all in this busy acre is immediately outside the Mansion House, for more than half the traffic crossing the imaginary boundary referred to passes that way. The result of a traffic census taken by the city police shows that on an average day some 30,000 vehicles pass this particular corner, while the pedestrian traffic is well over 250,000, and these figures are comstantly in- creasing. 4 It is in this country that one naturally seeks for big figures to rival those of London. Chicago boasts “a clty nerve center” where nearly 400,000 people pass and repass on foot during the day. In New York the figures approach those of Lon- on, and largely exceed it, counts the actual number of persons on foot and in vehicles. On Broad- way, at the juncture of 34th street, | is stated that 700,000 pass daily. includes tho' passengers on sur- cars, the foot passengers alona “being well under 500,000. -