The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, July 26, 1903, Page 3

mality; it is also volatile, elusive Our handsome doorway. He sauntered i, i yvoung friend has many powerful batteries if to give the picture tone, and then wi of it. But he i# no electriclan. Some he purposeful air took the seat.Mrs. Drelmer happily waste without harm to him- had just vacated. Miss Bines had beén h of it, apparently, he will con- entertained by involuntary visions of her- into that champagne he now drinks. self as Lady Casselthorpe. She now be- & week since 1 had the pleasure of came in fancy the noble Baroness de Pal- known to him he has drunk it llac, speaking faultless French and con- re each day, coplcusly. He cannot im- Sorting with the rare old'families of the a more salutary mode of exhausting Faubourg St. Germain. For, despite his e. 1 am told he comes of a father artistic indirection, the Baron's manner i # and who did in many ways Wwas conclusive, his intentions unmistak- This one, at the rate I have able. 4. will not last so long. He will And this day was much like many days g correspond with an environ- In the life of the Bines and in the life of , 80 unexacting as this. And the Hightower Hotel. The scene from son. perhaps his grandson, will be- Parlor to cafe was surveyed at intervals what you call broke; will from Jack DY & 'zuiet-;‘nannered ge:uon jwm‘: watch- . ¢ ful eves, who appeared to enjoy it as one to learn some useful art. a4 pon whom it fonferred benefits. Now 1d " gher he washed his hands in the Invisible sweet ssure of poker, this Bines. You see the "OftlY to himself, ‘Sellers and Buyers!" X Nu"dm’ K”F;}“”‘_ n; Sonit Perhaps the term fits the family of Bines as well as might many another coined especially for it. When the three groups in the Turkish room dissolved, Percival with his mother uch the air of seeming to stand 1self—he drinks whisky at my . ves? He is of a rich trust, the ctor as you say, and plays v and sister went to thelr suite on the s nightly with our young friend. g T 0 with bim in my presence befors " .Think of a real live : French moble- ered. saying, °I will make you 100K pap v erjeq Psyche, with. enthusiasm, forget now, but his humorous “and French must be such a funny lan- guage—he talks such funny English. I wish now I'd learned more of it at the Sem, and talked more with that French Dalpasse girl that was alyays toasting marshmallows on a hat pifi. “That lady Mrs. Drelmer introduced me to.” said Mrs. Bines, “is an artist, minfa- ture artist, hand-painted you know, and And the love of dis- gphe's golng to paint our minjatures for a r display. If one were not a sci- thousand dollars each because we're one might be tempted to say there friends of Mrs. Drelmer.” progress. The Peruvian graadee “Oh, ves,” exclalmed Psyche, with new = mules with pure gold, albeit that enthusiasm. “and Mrs. Drelmer has prom- makes but inferfor shodding for jsed to teach me bridge whist if I'll go to of burden. The London factory her house to-morrow. Isn't she kind? ed feathers of the ostrich Really, every one must play bridge now, and your money she tells m ing. Lucullus and “Well, ladies,” said the son and brother, joy in the same “I'm glad to see you both getting some making a show. of the white meat. I guess we'll do well 1y In the race’s childhood here. I'm going into ofl stock and lead, evolution is so unfast, myself.” 3 you will go now, Mr. Oldaker, “How girlish your Mttle friend, Mrs. you more again. Akemit, is!"” sald his mother. “How 'did e interested me &he come to lose her husband hall have my most high at- “Lost him in South Dakota, e you shi scuss son. shortly. e s that the commme - ~Divorced, ma,” explained Payche, “and produce a happy mean be- Mrs. Drelmer says her family’s good, but and epicure, by e she's too gay.” arts of r‘?‘mprnml;fl,xe::;n‘fl!:‘w “Ah!" exclaimed Percival, ““Mrs. Drel- Zeno with his bread and dates shail learn Mer's hammer must be one of. those cute s to reduce our young friend to of some inconsiderable sum in - of your country. I cannot re- precise amount, but it was not as what you call one dollar. is it not, that the rich who have 1 money gamble as feverishly as who have none, and therefore n excuse? replied her 3 ¢ ‘i clous not to despise a few luxurles, and Vitel- little gold ones, all set with pre; i 1 . stones. As a matter of fact, she’s am s 1 learn that the mind may some- StOnes. e m ast to advantage while the body thing but g Ve get along with her husband because he had no dignity of soul.” the marbled corridors and re- i became conscious of:sympathizing - wn the long perspective of _enerously with all men not thus Pers and onyx plllars, the func- equipped. at Percival's table broke up. CHAPTER X3 ppointment to meet Colonel © 5 e next morning to consum- THE DIVERSIONS OF A YOUNG se of some oll stock cer- MULTI-MILLIONAIR : e fabulously in value. He 1, 1 jq1e and lavish of money, 25 years promised to listen further to Mr. Isi- 15 with the appetites keen and the need re Lewls regarding a plan for obtaln- g,r' aetion always pressing; then to have s of @ certain line of one of ;.3 g girl with quick, strong,,youthful . ks. And he hud signified ,rq0r and to have had the ideal smirched o make one of a party the af- . cogsip then shattered before his e “,'_‘l‘;’ Lo r]”‘l' 1 amazed eyes—this is a situation in which o 2 sumptuous temple of 1. male animal is apt to behave in- chance, to which, by good luck, he had . uapiy. Tn the R itags 5T the eatituins most. covdtally from mne hemen Dr. von Heralich, he will seek those ave- the check vm after he jues of modification in which the least 3 : struggle Is required. In the simpler phras- r. Lewis, when Colonel Poindexter jng of Uncle Peter Bines, he will “cut o left, the young man with & Jooeen e Shtuing emnricad tnesnoeal During the winter that now followed Izzy, on the level, there's the percival Bines behaved accofding to t money that ever registered at either formula, as the reader may prefer. He early ascertained his limitations with respect to New York and its people. joint. You don't have to be Mr. Wil- m Wisenham to do business with him. You can ve all you want of that at txmck: ohl “Say, 0ld man,” he asked Herbert De- e 4 .. lancey Livingston one night, across the reepom gmaking book that way mysel.” (iplo at thelr college club, “are all the L erful Mr. Lewis; “f- . o0 in New York soclety impecun- 1 get you a thousand any time, my lad : fous? It's a lead-pipe at twenty to one. But & v i with all these Petroleum Pete oif . 2 .08ston bhad been with him - at Harvard, and Livingston's fam- k grafters and Dawson City Daves '3, e A e mncus 1 frozen feet and mining stock in papouty, %0 S g Wl their mitts, a man's got to play then CURloUS that the question was devold of any personal element. Livingston, more- over, had dined just unwisely encugh to be truthful. ] “Well, to be candid with you, Bines,” the young man had replied, in a burst of alcoholic confidence, “about all that you are likely to meet are broke—else you wouldn't meet 'em, you know,” ‘he ex- plained, cheerfully. “You know, old chap, a few of you Western people have got into the right set here: there’s the Nes- bits, for instance. On my word the good wife and mother hasn’t the kinks out of her fingers yet, nor the callouses from her hands, by Jove! She worked so hard cooking and washing woolen shirts for miners before Nesbit made his strike. As And she went forward for him—well caviare, I'm afraid, will al- ways be caviare to Jimmy Nesbit. And close in to his bosom to win out any- th ; {‘nmpeuv.l(m is killing this place, 0y." In the Turkish room Percival found Mrs. Akemit. gowned to perfection, glow- ing, and wearing a bunch of violets big- than her pretty head. “I've just sent cards to your mother and sister,” she explained, as she made room for him upon the‘divan. To them came presently Mrs. Drelmer, well-groomed and aggressively cheerful. “How de do! Just been down to Wall street seeing how my other half lives, d now I'm famished for tea and things. Ah! here are your mother and our proud Western beauty " to greet them “It's more thah her other half knows re now the' son's married a girl that had about her,” was Mrs. Akemit's observa- everything but ~money—my boy, Nellie tion to the violets on her breast. Wemple has fairly got that family of s Come eit with me here in this corner, Nesbits awestricken since she married dear,” sald Mrs. Drelmer to Psyche, while into it, just by the way she can spend Mrs. Bines joined her son and Mrs. Ake- “I've 80 much to tell you. And that little Florence Akemit, isn't it too bad about her. You know one of those bright French women said it's so incon- venient to be a widow because it's neces- money—but what was 1 saying. old chap? Oh, yes, about getting in—it takes time, you know; on my word, I think they were as much as eight years, and had to start In abroad, at that. At first, . . you know, you can only expect to meet sary to resume the modesty of a YOUNg g, crowd that can’t afford to be exclusive girl without being able to felgn her ig- any longer.” g g o e has @ hard Yrom which friendly counsel, and from AnE ¥ Stsd i Of me 10 cortain confirming observations of his - g You espe- own, Percival had concluded that his lot 7 about Mr. Mauburn. You know of S v < i e hell be Lord Casselthorpe wney 10 New York was to spend money. This poor . he began to do with a large Western esent Lord Casseltho e e e Ithorpe dice: a cyrelessness that speedily earned him 14 title, really quits one of the bost ‘Fine of a sort iy in all England; and, my dear, he's out- e ol 4 and-out smitten with you: therc s mo i, his advent was a golden joy. Tradesmen in learned to love him; florists, jewelers and E e i tallors hailed his coming with honest 9 Jove are S0 Teconadoires, YOUDE MOD fervor; walters told moving tales of his men. Ah! here is that Mra. Errol wiy, ~UPS; cabmen fought for the privilege of Aocs those fascinating miniatures of gy (FANSPOTtng him; and the hangers-on of the, smart people. Excuse me one me. TiCh young men picked pieces of lint as- meht, my dear; 1 want her to meet youe SiUously and solicitously from his coat. mother.” One of his favorite resorts was the The fashionable miniature artist was SoTpiUOUS Sambling-house In Forty- presently arranging with the dazed Mrs, oo e SiTect The man who slides back Bines for miniatures of herselt apg {he ®ancl of the stout oaken door early Savie. Bine D learned to welcome him through the slit, With the satiafied monco polding the paif harred by its grill of wrought {ron. The S ad glance of one who has ,¢1endant who took his coat and hat, the P tets ooy action, resumed her ajter who took his order for food, and » - the croupler who took his money, were Percival, across the room, listened to all gluddened ®y his coming: for his Mre. Akemit's artiess disclosure that she gratuities were as large when he lost as found life too complex—far too hazard- when he won. Even the reserved propri- ous, indeed, for a poor little creature in etor, accustomed as he was to a wealthy her unfortunate position. 8o liable to cruel and careless clientele, treated Percival misjudgment for thoughtiess, harmless with marked consideration after a night acts, the result of a young zest for life. when the young man persuaded him to She had often thought most seriously of withdraw the limit at roulette and spent a convent, lr_|deed she had—*“and, really, a large sum for testing a system for Mr. Bines, I'm amazed that I talk this breaking the wheel, given to him by a way—80 freely to you—vou know, when friend lately returned from Monte Carlo. I've known you so short a time; but 1 think, really, the fellow who gave something In you compels my confidences, me that system is an ass,” he said, light- poor littie me! and my poor little confi- ing a cigarette when the play was done. dences! One so seldom meets a man “Now I'm going down and demolish nowadays with whom one can venture to eight dollars’ worth of food and drink— talk about any of the real thing: you won't be all to the good on that, you A little later, as Mrs. Drelmer was know.” leaving, the majestic figure of the Baron His host decided that Ronault de Palliac framed itself in the man who was hungry denying it; you should hear him rave a after young los- ing & hundred thousand dollars In five hours’ play was & persen to be not lightly considered. And, though he loved the rhythmic whir and the ensuing rattle of the little ivory ball at the roulette wheel, he did not dis- dain the quieter faro, playing that digni- fled game exclusively with the chocolal colored chips, which cost a thousand dol- lars & stack. Sometimes he won, but not often enough to disturb his host's be- lief that there {s less of chance in his business than {n any other known to the captains of industry. There were, to0o, soclable games of pok- er played with Garmer of the lead trust, Burman, the intrepid young wheat opera- tor from Chicago, and half a dozen other well-moneyed spirits; games In which the limit, to use the Chicagoan's phrase, was “the beautiful but lofty North Star.” At these games he lost even more regularly than at those where, with the exception of a trifling percentage, he was solely at the merecy of chance. But he was a joy- ous loser, endearing himself to the other plavers; to Garmer, whom Burman hab- itually accused of being ‘‘closer than a warm night,” as well as to the open- handed son of the chewing gum magnate, who had been ralsed abroad and who pro- tested nightly that there was an element of beastly American commerefalism in the game. When Percival was by some chance absent from a sitting, the others calculated the precise sum he probably would have lost and humorously ac- quainted him with the amount by tele- graph next morning—it was apt to be nine hundred and some odd dollars—requesting that he cover by check at his early con- venience Yet the diversion was not all gambling. There were long sessions at all-night res- taurants where the element of chance in his favor, inconspicucus elsewhere, was Wwholly eliminated; suppers for hungry Thesplans and thirsty parasites, protract- ed with song and talk until the gas flames grew pale yellow and the cabmen, when the party went out into the wan light, would be low-voiced, confidential and sug- gestive in their approaches. Broadway would be welrdly quiet at such times, save for the occasional fren- zled clatter of a hurrying milk wagon. Even the cars seemed to move with less sound than by day and the early rising workers {nside, holuing dinner palls and lunch baskets, were subdued and silent, yet strangely observing, as if the hour were one in which the vision was made clear to appraise the values of life justly. To the north, whence the cars bulked si- lently, would be an awakening sky of such tender beauty that.the revelers often paid it the tribute of a moment's notice. “Pure turquoise,” one would declare. “"With just a dash of orange bitters in it,”” another might add. And then perhaps they burst into song under the spell, blending their voices Into what the professional gentlemen termed “'barber shop harmonies,” until a police- man would saunter across the street, pre- tending, however, that he was not aware of them. Then jerhaps a ride toward the beauti- ful “northern sky would be proposed, Wwhereupon three or four hansom or coupe loads would begin a journey that wound up through Central Park toward the northern light, but which never attained @ point remdrer than some suburban road- house, where sleepy cooks and bartenders would have to be routed out to collab- orate toward breakfast, Oftener the party fell away into strag- gling groups with notions for sleep, chant- ing at last, perhaps: While beer brings gladness, don't forzet That water only makes you wet! Percival would walk to the hotel, so- bered and perhaps made a little reflective by the unwonted quiet. But they were pleasant. careless folk, he concluded al- ways. They permitted him tb spend his money, but he was quite sure they would spend it as freely as he if they had it. More than one appreciative soubrette, met under such circumstances, was subse- quently enabled to laud the sureness of his taste in jewels—he cared little for anything but large diamonds, it trans- pired. It was a feeling tribute paid to his munificence by one of these in converse with a sister artist, who had yet to meet Myrtle, on the dead, he spends just ltke a young Jew trying to be white!"” Under this more or less happy surface of diversion, however, was an experfence decidedly less felicitous. He knew he should not, must not, hold Avice Milbrey in his mind; yét when he tried to put her out it hurt him. At first he had plumed himself upon his lucky escape that night, when he would have declared his love to her. To have married a girl who cared only for his money; that would have been dire enough. But to marry a girl like that! He had been lucky indeed! Yet, as the weeks went by the shock of the scene wore off. The scene itself re- mained clear, with the grinning gro- tesquerie of the Jack-o'-lanterns hting it and mocking his simplicity. But the first sharp physical hurt had healed. He was forced to admit that the girl still had power to trouble him. At times his strained nerves would relax to no other device than the picturing of her as his own. Exactly in the measure that he indulged this would his pride smart. ‘With a budding gift for negation he could imagine her caring for nothing but his money; and there was that other plcture, swift and awful, a pantomime in shadow, with the leering ye..ow faves above it. In the far night, when he awoke to sudden and hungry aloneness, he wouid let bis arms feel their hunger for her. The vision of her would be flowers and music and sunlight and time and all things perféct to mystify and delight, to satisfy §nd—greatest of all boons—to unsatisfy. The thought of her be- came a rest-house for all weariness; a haven where he was free to choose his nook and lie down away from all that was not her, which was all that was not beautiful. He would go back to seek the lost sweetness of their first mecting; to mount the poor dead bellef ihat she would care for him—that he could make her care for him—and endow the thing with artificlal life, trying to capture the faint breath of {t; but the memory was always fleeting, attenuated, llke the spirit of the memory of a perfume that had been elusivé at best. And always, to ban- ish what joy even this poor device m'ght bring, came the more vivid vision of the brutal, sordid facts. He forced himsuif to face them regularly as a penance and a corrective. They came before him with especial clearness when he met her from time to time during the winter. He watched her in talk with others, noting the contradic- tion in her that she would at one moment appear knowing and masterful, with depths of reserve that the other people neither fathomed nor knew of; and at another moment frankiy- girlish, with an appealing feminine helplessness which is woman's greatest strength, coercing every strong masculine instinct. ‘When' the reserve showed in her, he became afrald. What was she not cap: ble of? In the other , frankly ap- pealing, she drew him mightily, so that he abandoned himself for the moment, responding to her fresh exulting youth, longing to take her, to give her things, to make her laugh, to enfold and protect _her, to tell her secrets, to father her cheek with the softest kiss, to be the child-mate of her. . Toward him, directly, when they met she would sometimes be glacial and for- bidding, sometimes uninterestedly frank, as if they were but the best of common- place friends. Yet sometimes she made him feel that she, too, threw herself heartily to rest in the thought of their loving., and cheated herself, as he did, with dreams of comradeship. She left him at these times with\the feeling that they were deaf, dumb and blind to each other; that if some means of communi- cation could be devised, something surer than the invisible play of secret longings, all might yet be well. They talked as the people about them talked, words that meant nothing to either, and if there Wwere mute questionings, naked appeals, unuttered declarations, they were only such as language serves to diyert atten- tion from. Speech, doubtless, has its uses as well as its abuses. Politics, for exam- ple, would be less entertaining without it. But In matters of the heart, certain it is that there would be fewer misunder- standings if it were forbidden between the couple under the penalty of immedi- ate separation. In this affair real mean- ings are rarely conveyed except by stlences. Words are not more than taste- less drapery to obscure their lines. The stience of lovers is the plainest of all speech, warning, disconcerting indeed, by its very bluntness, any tut the truly mated. An hour’s silence with these two people by themselves might have worked wohders. Another diversion of Percival's during this somewhat feverish winter was Mrs. Akemit. Not only was she a woman.of finished *and ecxpert daintiness in dress and manner and surroundings, but she soothed, flattered, and stimulated him. ‘With the wisdom of her thirty-two years, devoted chiefly to a study of his species, she took care never to be exigent. She had the way of referring to herself as “poor little me,” yet she never made de- mands or allowed him to feel that she ex- pected anything from him in the way of allegiance, - Mrs. Akemit was not only like St. Paul, “all things to all men,” but she had gone a step bey that excellent theologue. She could be' all things to one man. She was light-heartedly frivolous, soberly re- flective, - shallow, profound, cynical or naive, ingenuous or inscrutable. She prized dearly the ecclesiastical back- ground provided by her uncle, the bishop, and had him to dine with the same un- erring sense of artistry that led her to select swiftly the becoming shade of sofa cushion to put her biond head back upon, The good bishop believed she had jeop- ardized her soul with divorce. He feared now she meant to lose it irrevocably through remarriage. As a foil to his aus- terity, therefore, she would be audacious- ly gay In his presence. “‘Hell,” she said to him one evening, “is given up so reluctantly by those who don't expect to go there.” And while the bishop frowned into his salad she invited Percival to drink with her in the manner of a woman who Is mad to Invite perdi- tion. If the good man could have beheld her before a background of frivolity he might have suffered less anxiety. For there her sense of contrast-values led her to be grave and deep, to express dis- taste for society with its hollowness, and to expose timidly the cruel scars on a soul meant for higher things. Magy afternoons Percival drank tea with her in the little red drawing-room of her dainty apartment up the avenue. Here in the half light which she had pre- ferred since thirty, in a soft corner with which she harmonized faultlessly, and where the blaze from the open fire col- ored her animated face just enough, she talked him usually into the glow of a high conceit with himself. When she dwelt upon the shortcomings of man, she did i1t with the air of frankly presuming him to be different from all others, one who could sympathize with her through knowing the frallties of his sex, yet one mmeasurably superior to them. When he was led to talk of himself—of whom, it seemed, she could never learn enough— he at once came to take high views of himself; to gaze, through her tactful prompting, with gentle, purring apprecia- tion upon the manifest spectacle of his own worth. Sometimes, away from her, he wondered how she did it. Sometimes, in her very presence, his scnse of humor became alert and suspicious. Part of the time he de- cided her to be a charming woman, with a depth and quality of sweetness unguessed by the world. The rest of the time he re- membered a saying about aifalfa made by Uncle Peter: “It's an innocent lookin’, triflin' vegetable, but its roots go right down into the ground a hundred feet. “My dear,” Mrs. Akemit had once con- fided to an intimate in an nour of negli- gee, “to meet a man, any man, from a red-cheeked butcher boy to a bloodless monk, and not make him feel something new for you—something he never befors felt for any other woman—really it's as criminal as a wrinkled stocking or for blondes to wear shiny things. Every woman can do It if she'll study a little how to reduce them to their least com- mon denominator—how to make them primitive.” X Of another member of Mrs. Akemit's househo!d Percival acknowledged the sway with never a misgiving. He had been the devoted lover of Baby Akemit from the afternoon when he had first cajoled her into autobiography—a vivid fire-tipped little thing with her mother’ piquanc He gleaned that day that she quarter to four vears old”: that she was mamma's girl, but papa was a friend of Santa Claus; that she went to “bail dances” every day clad in “dest a stirt ‘cause big ladies don't ever wear walst-es at night”: that she had once rid- den in a merry-go-round and it made her “all bomesick right here” patting her stomach; and that “‘elephants are horrid, but you mustn't be cruel to them and cut their eyes out. Oh, no!” Her Percival courted with resultz that left nothing to be desired. She fell to the floor In helpless, shrieking laughter when he came. In his honor she composed and sang songs to an Improvised and spirited accompaniment upon her toy plano. His favorites among these were *'Cause Why T Love You" and “Darling. Ask Mysel? to Come to You.” She rendered them with much feeling. If he were present when her bedtime came she refused to sleep until he had consented to an in- terview. Avice Milbrey had the fortune to wit- ness one of these bedtime causerfes. Omne late afternoon the young man’s summons came while he was one of a group that lingered late about Mrs. Akemit's little tea table, Miss Milbrey being of the number, He followed the maid dutifully qut through the hall to the door of the bed- room and entered on all fours with wha* they two had agreed was the growl of a famished bear. The famillar performance was viewed by the mother and by Miss Milbrey, whom the mother had urged to foliow. Baby Akemit in her crib, modestly ar- rayed in blue pajamas, after simulating the extreme terror required by the situa- tion, fell to chatting, while her mother and Miss Milbrey looked on from -the doorway. Miss Akemit had once been out in the woods, it appeared, and a “biting wolf™ chased her, and she ran and ran until she came to a river all full of pigs and fishes d berries, so she jumped in and had supper, and it wasn’t a “biting wolf” at all—and then— But the narrative was cut short by her mother. “Come, pet! now.” Miss Akemit, it appeared, was bent upon relating the adventures of Goldie Locks, subsequent to her leap from the window of the bear’s house. She had, it seemed, been compelled . to ride nine- twenty miles on a trollev. and, reaching home too late for lunch:on, had been Mr. Bines wishes to go obliged to eat in the kiichen with the cook. “Mr. Bines can't stay, da:!'ng!” Baby Akemit calculated briefly, and consented to his departure if Mr. Bines would bring her something next time. Mr. Bines promised, and moved away after the customary embrace, but she was not through: “Oh! oh! go out like a bear! dere's a bear come in here!"” And so, having brought the bear in, he was forced to drop again and growl the beast out, whereupon, appeased by this strict ¢bservance of the unities, the child sat up and demanded: “You sure you'll bring me somefin next time?"” *“Yes, sure, Lady Grenville St. Clare.” “Well, you sure you're comin’ next time?"” Being reassured on this point, and satis- fled that no more bears were at large, she lay down once more while Percival and the two observers returned to the draw- ing-room. You love children so!"* Miss Milbrey said. And never had she been so girlish- ly appealing to all that wis strong in him as a man. The frolic with the child seemed to have blown away a fog from between them. Yet never had the other scere been more vivid to him, and never had the pain of her heartlessness been more poignant. When he ‘“played” with Baby Akemit thereafter, the pretense was not all with the ild. For while she might “play” at giving a vexatiously large dinner, for which she was obliged to do the cooking because she had discharged all the ser- vants, or when they “plaged” that the big codh was a splendid ferry-boat fin which they were sailing to Chicago where Uncle David lived—with many stern threats to 4ell the janitor of the boat it the captain didn’t behave himself and sail faster—Percival “played” that his com- panion’s name was Baby Bines, and that her mother, who watched them with lov- ing eyes, was a sweet and gracious young woman named Avice. And when he told Baby Akemit that she ‘““the only orig- inal sweetheart” he meant it of some one else than he When the play was over he always con- ducted himself back to the sane reality by viewing this some one else in the cold light of truth. CHAPTER THE DISTRESSING MRS. BINES. The fame of the Bines family for de- spising money was not fed wholly by Per- cival's unremitting activities. Miss Psyche Bines durinz the winger achieved wide and enviab.e renown as a player of bridg whist." Not for the excelience of her play; rather for the inveteracy and size of her losses and the unconcerned cheerfuiness with which she defrayed them. She paid the considerable sums with an air of gratitude for having been permitted to lose them. - Especially did she seem grate- ful for the zeaious tutelage and chaper- orage of Mrs. Drelmer. “Everybody in New York plays bridge, TURE OF my dear, and of course you must learn,” that capable lady had said in the beginning. “But 1 never was bright at cards,” the girl confessed, ““and I'm afraid I couldn’t learn bridge well enough to interest you good players.’ “Nonsense!” was Mrs. Drelmer’s assur- ance, “Bridge is easy to learn and easy to play. I'll teach you. and I promise you the people you play with shall never com- plain.” Mrs. Drelmer, it soon appeared, knew what she was talking about. Indeed, that well-informed woman was always likely to. Her husband was an In- tellectual delinquent whom she spoke of largely as being *in Wall street,” and in that feat of jugglery known as “keeping up appearances’ his wife had long been the more dexterous performer. She was apt not only to know what she talked about, but she was a woman of resource, unafraid of action. She drilled Miss Bines in the rudiments of bridge. if the teacher became subsequentiy much the largest winner of the pupil's losings, it was perhaps not more than her ft recompense. For Miss Bines enjoyed not only the sport of the game, but her man- ner of playing it, combined with the so- e of her amiable sponsor, pro- cured her a ¢ ‘d otherw crably narrower. An enthusiastic player of bridge, of passable exterior, mediocre <kill and unlimited resources nesd never want in New York for very excellent so- ciety. Not only was the Western girl rec cefved by Mrs. Drelmer's immediate cir- 1#, but more than one member of what the lady called “that snubby set” would row and then make a place for her at the eard table. A few of Mrs. Drelmer's in- timates were so wanting in good taste as to intimate that she exploited Miss Bines even to the degree of an understanding expressed in bald percenmtage. with cer- tain of_those to whom she secured the ‘s Wglety at cards. Whether this i-patured gossip was true or false. it is certain that the exigencies of life on next to nothing a year, with a husband who could boast of next to nothing but Fam- fly, had developed an unerring business sense in Mrs. Drelmer; and certain it also is that this winter was one when the ap- pearances with which she had to strive were unwonted’y buoyant. Miss BRincs tirelessly memorized rules. She would disclose/ to her placid mother that the lead of a trump to the third hand’s go-over of hearts is of doubtful expediency: or that one must “follow suit with the sma'lest. except when you have only two, ne‘ther of them better than the Jack. Then play the higher first, so that when the lower fal's your partner may know you are out of the suit, and ruff it Mrs. Bines declared that it did seem to her very much like out-and-out gambling But Percival. looking over the stubs of his sister's checkbook, warmly protested her innocence of this charge. *s«on that the father of Mlle. “Heaven knows sis has her shortcom- ings,” he observed, patronizingly, in that young woman's presence, “but e's no gambler; don’t say it, ma, I beg of you! She only knows Lve rules of the game, and I judge it's cost her about three thou- sand dollars each to learn those. ' And the only one she never forgets is, “When in doubt, lead your highest check.” But don't ever accuse her of gambling. Poor girl, if she keeps on playing bridge she’ll have writer's cramp; that’s all I'm afraid of. I see there’s a new rapid-fire cneck- book on the market, and an improved fountain pen that doesn't slobber. I'll have to get her one of each.” Yet Psyche Bines' experience, like her brother’'s, was not without a proper iea en of sentiment. There was Fred Mil- brey, handsome, clever, amusing, Know- ing every one, and giving her a pleasant. sense of Intimacy with all that was worth while In New York. Him she felt very friendly to. Then there was Mauburn, presently to be Lord Casselthorpe, with his lazy, high- pitched drawl; good-natured, frank.: car- rying an atmosphere of high-class British worldline: and delicately awakening within her while she was with himr a sense of her own latent superiority to the Institutions of her native Ignd. She liked Mauburn, too. More impressive than either of these, however, was the Baron Ronault de Pal- liac. Tall, swarthy, saturnine, a polished man of all the world, of manners finished, elaborate and ceremonious, she found herseif feeling foreign and distinguished in his presence, quite as if she were the heroine of a romantic novel, and might at any Instant be called upon to assist In royalist Intrigues. The Baron, to her iu- tuition, nursed secret sorrows. For these she sccretly worshiped him. It is true that when he dined with her and hér mother, which he was frequently graclous enough to do, he ate with a heartiaéss that belled this secret sorrow had imagined. But e was nating at all times, with a grace at tab'e not less finished than that with which he bowed at their meetings and partings. It was not unpleasant to think of basking daily in the shine of that grand manner, even If she did feel friendlier with Milbrey, and more at ease with Mauburn. It the truth must be told, Miss Bines was less impressionable than either of the three would have wished. Her heart seemed n8t easy to reach: her impulses were not Inflammable. Young Milbrey early confided to his family a suspicion that she was singularly hard hearted and the definite information that she had “a hob-nailed Western way™ of treating’ her admirers. Mauburn, too, was shrewd enough to see that, while she frankly liked him. he was for some reason less a favorite than the Baron de Palliac. “It'll be no easy matter marrying that girl,” he told Mrs. Drelmer. “She’s really a dear, and awfully good fun, but she's not a bit silly and I dare say she’ll marry some chap because she likes him and not because he’s anybody, you know." “Make her like you,” viser. “On my word, I wish she did. Afd I'm not so sure, you know, she doesn’t fancy that Frenchman, or even young Milbrey."” 1l keep you before her,” promised Mrs. Drelmer, “and I wish you'd net think you can’t win her. "Tisn’t like you."” Miss Bines accordingly heard that it was such a pity young Mlilbrey drank so, because his only salvation lay in making a rich marriage, and a young man now- vs, had to keep fairly sober to accom- plish that. Really, Mrs. Drelmer felt sor- ry for the poor, weak fellow. “Good- hearted chap, but he has no character, my dear, so I'm afraid there’s no hope for him. He has the soul of a merchant taflor, actually, but not a tailor's man- hood. Otherwise he’'d be above marrying some unsuspecting girl for her money and breaking her heart after marrfage. Now, Mauburn is a type so different; hones unaffected, healthy, really he's a man for any girl to be proud of, even if he were not heir to a title—one of the best in all England and an ornament of the most exclusively correct set; of a line, my dear, that is truly great—not like that shoddy French nobility, discredited in France, that sends so many of its comic opera barons here looking for large dowries to pay their gambling debts and put fur- niture in their rattletrap old chateaux and keep them in absinthe and their other peculiar diversions. And Mauburn, you lucky minx, simply adores you—he's quite mad about you, really!” In spite of Mrs. Drelmer's two edged sword Miss Bines continued rather more able to the line of De Palliac. The was o splendid, so gloomy, so def- erential. He had the air of laying at her feet, as a rug, the whole glorious history of France. And he appeared so wel] in victoria when tney drove In the park. that the heart of Miss Bines quite untouche nd it was than a cool, dim, esthetic light which she surveyed the three suitors impartially, to behold the impres- sive figure of the Baron towering above the others. Had the Baron proposed for her hand, it is not impossible that, fac- ing the question directly, she would have parried or evaded. But certain events befeil unpropitiously at a time when the Baron was most cer- tain of his conquest; at the very time, indeed, when he had determined to open bis suit definitely by extending a proposal to the young lady through the orthodox medium of her nearest male relative. “I admit,” wrote the Baron to his ex- pectant father, “that it is what one calls nees’ in the English, but one venture in this country, and your not without hope. And if not, there is still Mile. Higbee.” The FParon shuddered as he wrote it. He preferred not to recognize even the existence of this alternative, for the rea- Higbee dis- him by an incompleteness of fa. in tressed suavity. “He conducts himself like a pork,” the Baron would declare to himself, by way of perfecting his English. The secret cause of his subsequent de- termination not to propose for the hand of Miss Bines lay in the hopelessly mid- dle class leanings of the lady who might have incurred the supreme honor of be- coming his mother-in-law. Had Mrs. Bines been above talking to low people, a catas- trophe might have been averted. But Mrs. Bines was not above it. She was quite unable to repress a vulgar interest in the menials that served her. She knew the butler's life history two days after she had ceased to be afrald of him. She knew the distressing family af- fairs of the maids: how many were the ignoble progeny of the elevator man, and what his plebeian wife did for their croup; how much rent the hallboy's low-born father paid for his mean two-story dwell- ing in Jersey City; and how many hours a day or night the debased scrub-women devoted to their unrefining toil. Brazenly, too, she held converse with Philippe, the active and voluble Alsauan who served her when she chose to aiue .n .she’ insisted his ad-