Evening Star Newspaper, February 12, 1929, Page 25

THE VICARION—By Gardner Hunting (Copyright, 1928, by Public Ledger) (Continued from Yesterday's Star.) INSTALLMENT XXXVIL URING the two weeks of Brain- ard’s illness and convalescence, Phyilis realized more and more that the world itself was sick. And more and more clearly she understood that its wound, if not was poisoned. Whatever was ‘wrong with the Vicarion, it was the Vi- carfon, or the use to which it had been ut, that was wrong with the people. t was it? Clearly it was a venom of which all normal conditions could -were dying! Barred from going to see Radley— shut away from him as it were by a gate of many bars—she agonized over the fact that the mere being with him through what she knew must be the crisis impending was denied her. But it had done him no good for her to rush to him before. It had done her no good. Physical nearness brought no spiritual contact. At his side she was still infinitely separated from him— separated by a barrier as awful as the Vicarion’s sheer gauze screen. Why was it that continually, continually, the conditions surrounding the Vicarion aralleled terrifyingly the conditions of ife? Was it because its liquid visions ‘were, after all, life’s true presentation? And if was it any marvel that the world was sick—sick of life itself? Conditions were swiftly becoming in- | tolerable. Problems of living were rapidly becoming acute, while people etill spent their time as spectators of | past events. And two phases of the passion that swayed them were as evident as the effects of all deep reaching stimulants. Greed grew for more and more of the thing upon which the appetite only in- creased; and a subtle cowardice, born of vague recognition of the chimera looming ruinously over them, accom- panied it. People knew, while they fluned. that disaster impended. Var- ously they interpreted it—or not at all, Some were aware that physical neces- sities must be attended to, if dire results were to be avoided. Some understood that the very fear of each other, de- Veloped and progressively augmented by constant exposures of private life, must lead to some catastrophe. Some saw that reaction would follow as inevitably as night the day when a people, or a race, rushed to any mad extreme. Yet no one could foresee or forecast the end. ‘To Phyllis the idea became a haunt- Ing obsession that this vast ocean of the past that had been tapped was run- ning in upon living people like the flood at the growing break in the dike! ‘The vision of a world drowning in a flood of life—too much life!—the whole life of all time sweeping down upon one little generation!—was paralyzing. She, like others who had an inkling of the truth, could only stand still. Nowhere inight one run with human feet from eluge! Relief Brainard was her only com- panion now who could be called a com- panion. Sometimes they talked to- gether, when they could even discuss the spectacle. “Give them enough of it and they ‘will learn that reality lies in something the Vicarion will never touch!” the older wom;rd; tried again to phrase it. flxt ’ttk muu e'g ucwel.:h and paltry as attemp put such things under blanket formulae. » “But you'd think it might chany peovle for the better somehow, mug; of for the worse,” Phyllis answered. “If seeing the crime and horror of the world can’t terrify us into being good. I should think seeing our own careers— as others see them—would!” “Men can't be scared into being good,” said Relief Brainard sapiently and quite unaware of humor. “Men become when they are shown that they are bet; ter than they think they are.” How the world loved to make phrases. And rules! Prescriptions, recipes, formulea, for and about living! How men could tell each other how! But one thing was gradually im- pressed upon Phyllis—a thing she had heard phrased in one way or another a thousand times, but a thing that had to be seen to be understood. The mass of the people, sometimes seeming whole like the body of a living crea- ture, responded to condjtons about it like a sensitive and impulsive child. Quick in its affections, as sudden in its resentment, unbound by obligations, un- won by favors, highly sensitive to wrongs, worshiping heroes, furious at being crossed, gullible in trifles but with tremendous instinct against being ultimately befooled! The crowd—like an overgrown, unruly boy—governed against its own vain self-assertion by its simplest emotions, unaware of its own strength, blind to its own interests, led by glitter, stumbling with its own clum- siness, capable beyond its wildest dreams! But the question kept coming back, and coming back—the question she had asked h Why do we stand apart and “There it is, the crowd?” Why is it so seldom' “Here we are, the crowd?” What is it gives men power? Some trick that bestows on them a whip for the mob? Or is it the principle of ruthlessness in using advantage that comes once to every man—advantage that slips from the hands of the weak and grasps the prizes for the strong! No, no, not that!—or men would never have needed a capital to identify the Inquisition—nor have made a common noun of waterloo! What truly makes a man stand forever out from men? His sense of oneness with them? But as days and more days went by the girl came to feel that the peo- ple's mood was like so much scattered powder lying open to a spark. What was it to them?—fear of the whip? Passions roused, dammed,® pent? ‘The blind, gathering menace of a misdi- rected force? Whatever it was, every- where hung a sultry. atmosphere charged with storm. She felt it as one feels the oppression of the rising thunder cloud while the sun still shines. On a night it broke. $ome one came to the house at midinght. Phyllis, wakeful, had yet heard no alarm till the bell of the front house door rang and rang again, unanswered, and with that persistence that soon constitutes alarm. The silence of the great house imresponsive to that insistent summons drove her from her bed. She had known that none of the others was at home when se had gone to her room. Now as she ran through the upper hall the emptiness of her home about her was like the chill hol- low of some great crypt, white-walled sent—in the still night! And John! Servants gone! She was alone! And here was some dire thing—some cruel event reaching in here out of the | THESE 'SOCIETY BRAND A% #40 and #35 Sheldon and Braeburn OVercbats prilginins 55, £50, #45 Society Brand, Braeburn & Sheldon 0’Coats, #39 #65 Society Brand Finely Tailored Overcoats 6 darkness like a hand snatching at the strings of life. How trustfully she had slept, unwitting that a guarded life may lose its wonted protection lik& & slipping coverlet! She opened ap called down into the porch below. man answered her—Van Winkle! “It's come!” he said—as if she would understand, just as she did—as if she maust have foreseen, just as she had! “What's happened?” she asked. “They’ve broken over at last—the You'll have to run for it— theyll cg}pe here!” upper window nn: “They assoclate you with Brainard, of course.” “I'm—alone! “I'll waif The traitor! Here was the traitor, with warning of disaster! But she barely thought of that. “They'll as- sociate you with Brainard!” ~ What, then, had they done—what did they mean to do—to him? A world of meaning lay in that brief phrase. They hated him, then: “They'll associate you with Brainard!” It was a foregone thing that they had turned against him! And she had known they would. Almost from the beginning she had known what the crowd would some time do. Had they thought with her? Had she thought with them? Her riding clothes of white linen had been laid out for her morning gallop, the only respite she had lately had from thought. They were easy to get into, knickers and belt and boots and sleeveless coat. . “It's come!” she whispered. “It's come!” over and over. “It's come!” But her hands did not tremble nor her breath grow short. She tossed back her hair before her mirror and slipped on & hat that fitted close, binding with it the bright mass back from her lovely. face. Her eyes alone, in their great, dark intentness, marked her sense of final crisis. Here was climax—to whicn she rose with courage that shook every- day trembling of weeks out of her slender young body and strung it. taut. Here was sometihng for her to ineet! The conception of the great, blind night outside, covering somewhere 'the gathering, creeping menace of the mob —the gathering hatred that stretched far away and away under the darkened , like the low hanging clouds them- selves, black, mysterious, unending, burdened, was like a forevision of the world’s end. But that itself would be sonx‘::nlng to meet—something to run to t! For horror must lie forever, not in the meeting, but in the approach! She ran down the stairs and un- barred the door. e moment sh2 opened it Van Winkle's silhouette loomed against a sky that“had furned a hot yellow, like some great, poison- ous, tropical flower. She kneW; what it was. She stepped out beside*him; she was not afraid of him. T Was room in her heart for but one feéar. “Do you know where Mr. Brinard 1s?” she asked. o “He was in his studio—we ‘coulldn’t :ou?fim And the new door is of She had not known that. She had & momentary vision of a-lonely' man shut away from his world by the stout- est means he could devise. Soufmeans, “How did if L fd '.".ln a thegedr. AA‘Cut in'a announced. small thi they resented it. “They tool fllrnv" Father and mother ab- | indeed! m But ‘They. rioted over it and smashed things. It broke. out into the street and spread. It isn’t an hour, but the studios are afire in 50 places! A few engines are out—pitifully inadequate. The crowd is smashing theater fronts now—win- dows, signs, anything that will and jangle. When I came away they were trying to break down the iron gates to the hallways of the Bonmar!” “What will they do?” “Murder, T guess. It was bound to come. out—they've been fed on it “TlL, get the car,” said the girl. : She turned blclf til!:ew the houa: nlxla secured the keys of garage; a dupli- cate set hung }:&nya in the hall. She went back to . “will you go down with me?” she asked him. “The streets are filled—you can only drive away!” “We'll go by the beach. It's low tide.” “But—what can you do?” “I don’t know.” . They started down the steps together to go around to the rear. But a ery from the road arrested them. In the rising ilght Phyllis saw two figures turning in between the stone pillars of the gate. In a moment she was run- ring toward them. Relief Brainard staggered toward her, supporting, half dragging, almost carrying it, it seemed, a disheveled, reeling man. It was John. His face was cut. Blood ran down across it and sprayed from his lips when he tried to speak. They got him to the steps, where he fell inert. Phyllis clasped him in her arms, trying to cover him as if from lTflmem blows, Miss Brainard dragged at her. “We must gef away,” she said. “It’s because he's a Norman they tried to kill him. He—he was in the crowd, as mad as the rest. So was I. I don't know what it was—a fever that caught everybody, even me—till I saw him fall, It's because he's’'a Norman. We must get away.” “How did you get here?” Van Winkle asked her. But she could not tell him. “The car!” Phyllis said. Van . Winkle dropped down beside John. “I'll take care of the boy,”. he told her. “You're the only one who can drive the car.” She got to her feet. Then she turned and ran through the graveled path away:to the rear of the house. The garage doors were open. Greaf black squares in the yellow light from the sky. . A figure appeared in one. It‘was Masters, ' the young chauffeur. Even the freckles showed on his honest, young “Oh!” he_.said as he recognized her. “Say, I'm glad you' come, Miss Norman. ido t-know what to do,, only. wait er » : “Masters!” gasped Phyllis. around front, quick—the big car. “Big car’s ‘out, miss. Your father took it, with Drake. There’s only the light sedan.” “The sedan? Five passengers, Very well—quick!” She started to turn again toward the house, when she heard the mare,. Betty, nicker in the stable near at hand, as if in response to the sound of his mis- tress’ voice. Phyllis stopped short. She could not use the car now to go to Radley. They must take John away somewhere in it. But she could use the mare. “‘Oh, Masters!” she cried. “Will you saddle Betty for me? I—I've got to get_her away, t00.” He ran obediently out and to the stable. She waited. It seemed but a moment before he led the saddled ani- mal out to her. Betty nuzzled at her affectionately. The young man held his hand for Phyllis’ foot. In an in- stant she was in the saddle. He looked up at her, worshipfully. She had seen it in him befote—thi boyish adoration, unj . 929 aigs e O 85 and #75 Society Brand and Sheldon Overcoats' . . . . %69 Direct Elevator Service to the Men’s Clothing Department—Second Floor Tar Hecar Co. F, Street at Seventh® * —also a group of « = = Sheldon Suits Made ‘to Sell for $35, $40 & $45 29 “Oh, you'll help me! I haven't any- body to. help me but.you. John, my brother, is hurt. Miss Brainard and Mr. Van Winkle are with him out front. Take them wherever they fell you to go. I can’t go till T know"— she hesitated an instant—till I know the others are safe.” “But, Miss'Norman—" he began, She stopped him with a gesture. “We haven't time to argue. I depend on you.” And she turned the mare and gal- loped across the flower beds toward the front. At the steps she saw that a fourth figure was added to the little group, It was Carol. Carol—a wilted, drooping, sodden little thing, mysteriously wet, shivering with cold, dull to apathy, ap- parently, so far as John's condition was concerned, but echoing in turn the alarm Van Winkle and Relief Brainard has brought. “They're coming here!” she said to Phyllis, explaining her own presence only by warning. Then she re- peated it. “They’re coming here!” and reiterated it, “They're coming here!” with the stupidity of half delirium, She seemed crazed by exhaustion and fear. b “Masters is bringing the car,” Phyllis told them. ou are all to go in it.” “Where?” asked Van Winkle. “Without you?” “You'll go, too!” cried Relief Brain- ard. “And we’ll all drive to my little hou > up back of Altadena. They'll never thing of coming there.” ““Good!” Phyllis answered her. “Tell Masters to take you there. “I'll come when I can.” And knowing the fruitlessness of dis- cussion, she turned Betty, took the low hedge beside the drive, and was off across lawns, over fences, through shrubbery, away toward the beach. ‘The mare seemed to thrill with de- light at the midnight run. She bounded over low obstacles and took higher ones with light-footed leaps, responding to a touch, a word. She was a splendid creatur d her gallop was like a glorious flight. As if herself imbued with purpose, but joyous in its execu- tion, she seemed to answer to the very impulse of her rider. And the girl's spirit3 rose with the sense of it. Some- thing to do! Something to do! And doing it. Vague indeed was her plan— only to begin by gcng Where there might be more to do; only to reach the place where crisis would center; only to fling herself into the thick of his strug- gle, whatever it might prove to be. Sure of his extremity, wanting only to share it. With nothing to offer but her fragile body and devotion. Careless of consequences other than that she might be where he was. Winged with loyalty and armed with nothing else. Under a flame-lit sky, whose dun clouds seemed gorged with blood; through networks of cross-lights; clattering over little streets of asphalt; thundering upon sod and hard-packed sand; dodging under stilt- ed docks; crashing over the rattling boards of some long wharf approach; tearing through shivering gardens and flinging the gravel from private drives— 80 she rode, erect in the saddle, high on the stirrups, with flying rein, pant- ing in beat with the mare’s wild breaths, whipped with the wind of her flight; heedless of risk and of narrow chance, reckless of bruising branch or tearing thorn, led by love—by all that made living life to her! She saw the Bonmar's slender facade loom like a tower of ivory in the glare from the east that was like a hot sun- rise. She brought her tiring mount down to the side street, with the roar of the crowd beginning to fill her ears. They were there ahead of her, the mob! There they were, filling the pave- ment from curb to curb, sweeping around corners, overrunning surround- ing spaces, swinging to and fro with that strange movement of a swaying crowd in which body seems welded to body, all moving in involuntary unison. in complete disregard of individual will. Their shouts went up in great heaving cries, echoing -hollowly down streets and lanes, flung back clatteringly from the building’s high tile and g How alike they were—ths people; heads up, yellow faces turned to the same angle, chins thrust out, gaze in- lent, flesh strained to the same hue by fire and passion, prompted by the same vague purpose, with the same willing- ness to be led, Here because led here, hating because led to hate, murderous because taught murder! But who had led them here, hating and murderous? Surely not those little dancing. anwling figures over there at the foot of the building’s walls. Surely not “hose pyg- mies who shouted at and shook to no avail the high iron palings that guard- ed the building’s floors. Not those mere stragglers, frayed from the crowd’s own edge and fluttering there like the wind- whipped ravelings of a flag! What were they to the crowd and to the thing that led them? But_yells and cries were rising in the gther street on the building's front. The ‘girl pushed her horse along the outskirts of the close-packed throng. Without giving her attention otherwise they seemed to pack the closer to let her pass. She looked down upon their heads at the white corners of their eyes, at their humped shoulders and cramped arms—at their sea of hats! Hats! Badges of their blindness to the very likeness they typified. ‘They were storming the Bonmar’s front door. As Betty picked her way around the rear of the crowd in the main thoroughfare Phyllis saw agamn a little group of madly active figures close in against an iron gate, behind whom surged the mass of humanit: No, they were not the leaders of the crowd—rather its hands! With them the mob beat against the iron barrier. Some of them it bruised and broke! As the girl watched she saw a man leap and fall against the bars. Past her, near by, another was carried bleed- ing, but raving and cursing at his plight. But to the crowd they were as its cut kuckles, worth only a passing thought. Frenzied others had rushed in to take their vacant places. Driven by passion, how little men cared for their flesh and blood selves! Bodies b 25 came important only when spirits were tamed! The entrance to the Bonmar, bril- lantly lighted as it always was, glit- tered like the starry staircase to a fairy palace. But it was empty. Its guardi- ans had fled! Still and empty and bright, echoing like a well to the shouts of the mob, but isolated by its wicket as it in a plane removed—seeming sud- denly invested with a cold. aloof per- sonality, indifferent to the tumult, stolidly untouched and unafraid, with starry eyes a spectator, like herself! Radley was not there! Above, dark windows stood black in the building's towering_white front. Darkness eve: where. Was he there—up there some- where, cowering in dim rooms, or slink- ing through echoing halls? She did not believe it! He was no cowgrd. She could fancy him still' shut away, ab- sorbed, in that muffied’ den, his studio, unaware of disaster; but if he knew, if he saw this frenzied attack, he would come out and deal with it. Trickster he might be, crafty, unscrupulous now, cruel! His hand against all men’s be- cause he believed their hands against him. Blind, mistaken, perverse, per- haps—but no coward! Where was he, then? 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