Evening Star Newspaper, June 25, 1933, Page 72

/he SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C, JUNE 25 1983.° FIXER In Which Young Miss Tiffany Strikes a Blow for the Honor of the Family. TUART circled the breakfast table with a movement that was the all-uncon- scious grace of her 15 years and dropped wearily into her father’s va- cated chair. Then she cupped her small oval chin in the palms of her hands, rested her elbows on the table’s edge and, with young, solemn gray eyes, stared &i- lently at Marjorie Tiffany. Her mother—to think that she could be do- ing this frightful thing to her father! Of course, her father. was a little old. There were tiny lines around the deep, dark eyes. A it of gray peeped through the black waves at his temples, too. But at that, he was only three or four years older than Marjorie—40 his last birthday, or was it 39? ‘It was hard to think clearly when your mind was so confused with trouble. But .whateyer his age, there wasn’t enough dif- derence to cause Marjorie to become tired of him. It wasn't as if it were a May and March, or Spring and Winter, or whatevet you call those youth-and-old-age matches. There was no rea- son that she could see why Marjorie Tiffany -wanted another man! Stuart’s heart beat a little faster and a faint dlush crept into her cheeks when she thought of her mother’s other man! She had seen him once. He was tall and dark and slim, like her father, with wonderful eyes and a smudge of black, curling lashes that her father would have Joathed. Her fathey would have said: “Whew! Did you take in those lashes! He'd have to part them to see his way about!” But they were nice lashes, just the same, and his eyes were nice, too—not a bit of blue in them, just gray, like a wistful twilight. K STUART remembered vividly the morning that the young man had driven up to the door of their house and had asked for Marjorie in a tone that seemed to defy any one to re- fuse his request—husband or no husband! At the sound of his voice Marjorie had rushed around her room like some creature gone suddenly wild. She had powdered her tip-tilted nose six or eight times, she had thrown all of her dresses on the bed, picking and choosing among them, finally wailing that she never had anything decent to wear. Then in a perfect flutter, swinging her silky hips, she had breezed down the winding stairs to greet young Mr. Maxwell with an enthusiesm that she seldom exhibited. They had rushed out of the house after that, arm in arm, and off to—she wondered just where they were “off t¢” that morning, her mother and Mr. Maxwell. Even stretching her imagination to the limit, and, indeed, that was no little stretching, she had to admit that she had not the faintest idea where they had gone. Later that day when Marjorie had come home, still flushed and excited, facets of Taughter in the dlamond brightness of her blue eyes, Stuart had asked so many questions, in #uch quick succession, that her mother had stamped her tiny foot, like an ill-tempered little girl: “Oh! Stuart! Be quiet! I'm not going to tell you one word about Mr. Maxwell and don’t you dare tell your father,. or even hint that I've seen him! If you do, I'll g . She didn't say what she would do if Stuart told John Tiffany, for in the very next second she had just seemed to forget all about Stuart and her father and the home that sile was wrecking. You could tell by the glow In her ‘cheeks, bright like fruit stains, and the rapture In her eyes, that she was thinking only of Donald Maxwell. And that's how it had started, that affair between Marjorie Tiffany and Donald Maxwell. The very next day, at exactly 10 o’clock, Marjorie was in the same hectic rush. When she was finally dressed, her blue crepe flowing a8 close as water over her slim body, she snug- gled into her fur coat, dashed up the striated radiance of Elm street’s cottonwoods and turned out of sight around the corner. HE third day, Stuart, deeply suspicious, ! shadowed her mother and discovered that ber suspicions were only too correct. Her motheg was meeting Mr. Maxwell three blocks fropa the house on a street corner! Stuart shivered, her hands limp and as culd 8s lard, when she thought of her mother meet- ing a man, and particularly on a street osener. Anything as low and degrading as mget- ing a man on a street corner! - At that moment Marjorie Tiffany lifted her lovely golden head from the morning paper and Mustrated By PAUL KROESEN the wide violet-blue eyes sought the clock on the Rockwood mantel. “Heavens!” she sighed, the pupils magnified. “Five minutes of 10! Where has the time * gone!” The great eyes dropped then to Stuart’s wan, troubled face and the pencil-point brows darted together quickly. “You're not finding the Thanksgiving holi- days too trying, at home with the old folks, are you, dear?” Stuart’s eyes screwed together in a tangle of lashes. She ignored her mother’s solicitude. Boarding school, holidays, everything trivial was banished from her mind. “I suppose you'll manage to get back before father comes home,” she said, a crooked, wicked little smile on her lips. “Of course, lamb,” said Marjorie, folding the paper and rising to her feet. “I thought so!” said Stuart firmly. And when Marjorie stared at her, half-startled be- cause of the restrained emotion in Stuart’s freezing tone, Stuart parted her lips in a little panting execration of her mother and stalked superiorly from the room. Stuart went straight to her room on the top floor and threw herself across the bed, her tousled bronze curls buried in the curve of her arm. A flood of tears streaked down to the counterpane, leaving dark rose patches on the pale pink of the satin. Then Marjorie’s hurried steps on the stair sounded like the staccato of distant musketry and the front door closed with a reverberating bang. Stuart jumped from the bed, as if she had been set off by a spring, and ran to the< window, just in time to see Marjorie actually running down the front walk and all the way up Elm street before she turned out of sight around the corner. She was that anxious to get with her Mr. Maxwell. In the late afternoon when Stuart could stand no longer the silence of the big house, the house that was a mockery to all that was good and noble and decent in marriage, she socaked her tear-stained face in cold water and held little cubes of ice to her burning eyes. She dressed very slowly and carefully, any- thing to distract the tumult of her worried mind, selecting her favorite dress of orchid wool-crepe with fuzzy angora collar and the little pillbox of a lavender hat that perched on her copper-satin curls like an impudent pansy. HE movie that she saw was one that she adored, and she stayed through a second time. The hero was a lean, romantic, cadaver- ous chap who loved a not-too-pretty, highly emotional heroine. This heroine took the last 15 minutes of the film in which to die a most lovely death and Stuart came out onto the street with four tear- drenched handkerchiefs in her pockets and the resolution that she would see that show again before time to go back to boarding school. Thinking of her father, she glanced quickly at the jeweled watch on her wrist and seeing that his office hours were about over, she de- cided to walk on up G street as far as the Treasury Department and wait there on the corner for him. She would walk along bome with him, darling! Anythmgp‘::e could do to make his suffering less, his life more endurable, was certainly little enough, for in the end he would discover how he had been betrayed. Suddenly her heart crowded in her breast and a faint perspiration moistened her bare forehead. Things were happening in quick succession. Marjorie and Mr. Maxwell, still arm in arm, stepped out of the leather store, right before her very®eyes, and stood for a moment on the corner of Fourteenth street. Then Marjorie beckoned to a cab and Mr. Maxwell gallantly helped her into its capacious rear seat. Stuart could not see Marjorie, who was sitting back deep in the taxi, but she could see her graceful hand through the lowered window and knew by the gesture of the finger-tips that she had thrown Mr. Maxwell a kiss, right down- town in the busiest section, for every one to see. Flaunting her reprehensible affair in the faces of decent, self-respecting people! Mr. Maxwell stood on the curb, waving forlornly to the dis- of sight. Stuart followed him. A few blocks out of business district he climbed into a parked roadster, of a very new expensive make, and headed the car toward Connecticut avenue and upper residential Washington. For a fainting second, Stuart thought that she had lost him, and with him, her noble cause. But at that crucial moment a taxi cruised by and she hailed it with a wee little: “Follow that car, driver. life and death!” ‘The driver obeyed. She followed Mr. Max- well across the city to an apartment hotel. When he went in, she trailed him. She hesi- tated outside his door, gathering courage; then, boldly, she knocked. Donald Maxwell flung the door open and Stuart, who did not wait to bg invited in, whisked by him 1ike a gentle breeze and stood waiting for him beneath the crystal chandeliers of his tremendous living room. Donald Maxwell followed her in, a wry smile on his dark, hand- some face. It’s a matter of TUART did not waste a second. “I've come to ask you to give up my mother,” she said, her voice trembling. “Have all of the love affairs you wish, Mr. Maxwell, but please, please spare my home, my father!” Donald Maxwell stared at the tiny, tense Donald Maxwell stared at the tiny, temse figure. “Did those words come out of you!” he ventured, sagely, an engaging smile on his lips. B figure with eyes trained for asssult and capitu- lation. “Did those words come out of you!” he ven- tured, sagely, an engaging smile on his lips. The high color of his cheeks had deepened to & dark rose that spread over his entire thin face. He looked very much like s young man who was having a difficult time suppressing a laugh. “And you're Marjorie Tiffany’s daugbter, aren't you? You're quite alike, but you are even more beautiful than your mother, if that's possible,” he went on seriously. “I did not come here to be insulted,” she said, coolly, drawing herself up haughty and erect. “You will give her up, won't you?” “Please don’t ask me to give up your mother,™ said Donald Maxwell slowly, frowning and ex- haling a long plume of smoke. “Why, your mother couldn’t go on without me. Sbe'd— . why, she’d kill herself. I know it.” Stuart held her shoulders stiff, with some- thing of the dignity of Winter. “Stop!” che demanded, eyes blazing, ice edging her voice. “I do not wish to hear another word of yours and mother’s perfidy!” “And did that great big jaw-breaking word come out of you,” he laughed. Stuart narrowed her glance and tilted her head back that she might look Donald Maxwell fully, scornfully, in the eye. “It did,” she cried and would have said more but Donald Maxwell had bent her with boneless ductility over his arm and had kissed her—hard. 3 And when she did not move away but only stood there in his arms, staring up at him, eyes dilated, lips slightly apart with surprise, he said, huskily. “Forgive me. Please. I couldn't help it. You're too sweet to be true.” Stuart hardly heard his apology, for, once fully recovered from the shock of that, her very first kiss, she had rushed out of his apartment and down the hall, never once glancing back lest Donald Maxwell be hot on her heels. When Stuart got home she found her waiting for her with an air of excitement. fore she could collect her thoughts they her outdoors, acruss the lawn and up to garage. Then, dramatically, they opened the garage doors. . “Oh, a roadster,” Stuart squealed, delightedly, breaking away and caressing the new, shining, underslung car with gentle, loving finger-tigs. “A straight-eight!” “Your mother is getting tricky in her ola age,” John Tiffany began proudly. “She knew that I was afraid for her to learn to drive, that being the sole reason why I wouldn't give her a car, so she wheedled grandfather Hunton into buying it for her birthday, had young Donald Maxwell teach her to drive, and there you are!”™ So he had taught her mother to drive—had taught her to drive! That explained everything, his laughs and amusement and even the silly statement, “Why, your mother couldn’t go on without me—she’d—why she’d kill herself, I know it.” MARJORIE. who had gone to the house ahead of them, met them at the side en- ;r:nce, an aura of fascinating excitement about T “Stuart,” sfe said. “Donald Maxwell is on the telephone. He wants to know if I'll let you g0 to the movies with him tonight. I didn't know that you knew him, darling. ‘The blood drained from Stuarts face, leaving here eyes brilliant sapphires. “Oh! . . . oh! yes! I know him, mother! I met him at the hotel where he lives one after- noon. Please let me go—won't you!” John Tiffany smiled slowly. “It’s okay with “And it's okay with mel” Marjorie added, delightedly.