The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, October 4, 1903, Page 11

his extravagances. He uld at once give the remaining $0 of the money In bank to Grace, and before hat was gone he would surely be earning egough to support her as she had been living. Would he? The doubt chilled his heart! He walked the for _ hours, cursing his stupidity In having made his first step in New York without advice; questioning, questioning, how to keep from Grace & knowledge of this reverse of fortune; striving, until his mind became numb, to fix upon a scheme of ready-selling work to tide his affairs along until he could make new connections; torturing himselr with the thought of Grace, her beloved studies abandoned, her pleasant home given up, struggling with him in pov- erty; sweet-hearted and uncomplaining, of course, but for that very reason all the greater reproach to him! He went to his room and tried to write—anything —but invention was dead. Then he pack- ed his belongings and went out to search for a cheap room to move into, and find- ing one, engaged it, but when asked for a deposit of a week’s rent, found that the dollar he had given Nora Day was the !last money he had. *“I will call to- | morrow,” he said, and walked away. |. Mr. Faulkner was inclined to be amus- ed at Mr. Carson’s story of Paxton’s rage and assault, when the angry managing editor went to the Chief for sympathy. “But never mind, Carson,” he said. “Just keep Paxton's bills down lower and low- er I he feels the pinch, until he goes to bed hungry a few times, and then he won't be so high-spirited about refusing to do that line of work. The Bannister story will keep until Paxton's hungry.” “] discharged him,” Carson cried alarm. ‘Discharged him!" cried the Chilef “Who told you to discharge nim? I told you to pull him down until he was ready to do whatever work 1 wanted him to do. You damned fooll Don't you know that he's a first-class special writer? The Sunday editor tells me he has several times finished stories | that Turnbull left unfinished, and that his work is rattling good stuff. He's the only man left on the paper who has any de- cent social connections in the city, and we must not lose him until he's worn out those connections. I want that man back! Do you understand?” “He won't come back,” muttered Car- son. Turnbull tells me that he was going enyway, before I discharged him! and that he’s the kind of man we couldn’t starve into the work we.wanted of him.” “Bah!” cried the proprietor, “I could have done it. See that you don’t make her mistake like that, Carson. You're not the only man on the paper who wants the job you hold now.” Carson slunk out of the presence of the Chief, glad to get off as lightly as he did, and the Chief returned to the com- position of an editorial. That work of his own hand and brain was printed in the Chronicle the next morning. It wes a passicnate appeal for the rights of the laboring man. It condemned, scathingly, the heartless employer of wage-earners who falls to share gener- ously with his workmen the profits of their toll; pictured the nobleness of labor in tender and glowing colors; and hinted that if capital refused to grant the ut- most demand of labor, that refusal was a justification for the use of force to compel compliance. But the lot of the poor is not always as unhappy as the able editorial of Mr. Faulkner wauld have it appear. The lit- the two-room home of Bessie and Nora Day, and Smiling Harry, the sea food man, was not unhappy that night The rent was paid and Nora brought home some meat and tea and bread and butter, to make such an unusually plentiful meal that happiness reigned at that family supper table, at least. XIV—IN SOCIETY. Isseac Bunton's affairs seemed to pros- per; he was an optimist in the stock mar- ket, and, “operating for a rise,” as Wall street phrased it, was successful in a measure that gained for him considerable notoriety. But in the fall of the year, when Howard Paxton severed his connec. tion with the Chronicle, although there was & stock market which rejoiced the “Bulls” generally, there were certain stocks which stnwmlod to respond to the common up: endency of prices, end they were the stocks 18 which Bun- ton was most interested. His dealings had been, as usual, based upon a close v of conditions, and those conditions favorebly affected many shares, but sel dom the ones he selected to speculate In. He was not an unsuspecting “Lamb”; and giving keen attention to a suspiclon that an Influence was at work upon the prices of shares he was known to favor, he was convinced that his suspicions were justified. He knew that there was a pro- cess practiced in the street known as haking out” the holdings of weak or rdesirable operators, but he did not be- lieve, for a time, that the was the opera- tor aimed at in the depressing influence et work on his line of purchases. But when he made some experimental pur- chases and sales, ®o openly that the whole street knew of them, they were so invariably followed by movements in the prices unfavorable to him that he was forced to the disquieting conclusion that he was the marked person. This dis- turbed him greatly. He knew that his dealings were not of sufficient magnitude to disturb the plans of any of the great powers In the street, and his uneasiness increased as he sought for a possible mo- tive for these attacks on him. His gullty consclence answered the question. There could be but one reason for these as- saults on his finances: to force him to dis- pose of the mining land he had so per- eistently refused to part with. That subject was seldom out of his mind, sleeping or waking. A thousand times he hed considered the possibility of the truth being discovered if he should take the risk and boldly affix his signa- ture, s owner, to & deed of sale to the land. It would end his persecution in the Btreet; it would at once place him in com- mand of capital to operate on a larger 1t would put him in friendly rela- tion with & powerful interest; it would give him almost an assurance of success in the field to which his temperament and ambition led him But?—his tortured imagination invariably dragged him, at the end of every such thought, to the soene of the wreck the night he followed Harry Lawton on the Valley Railroad. He blamed himself for having made too slight an investigation of the charred end blackened effects found near Harry's body. He haed too readily taken it for granted that the deed showing that Dr. Paxton had bought and paid for the min- ing land was in either the coat Harry ‘wore, or the satchel he carried, and there- fore destroyed. It was possible, he now thought, that Harry might have bought clothes that required another satchel; the deed may have been In that, and that not destroyed; the body whose hand clung to the old satchel identified as Harry's m! not have worn an overcoat, and Harry's coat, with the deed In its pocket, might have been found afterward, scarce- 1y injured, and be in existence now. Bun- ton recalled some of the mysteries of the wreck—a baby taken from a burning car, asleep, unhurt, its dainty clothing not even smoke-stained; a half-burned valise found to contain a bunch of unignited matches. Thoughts of these strange things, all pointing to the possibility of the deed being 4 still in existence, un- injured, ard likely at any time to be dis- covered and come into publicity, racked his dreams and harassed his waking hours. He should have remained at the scene of the wreck until he had secured the deed, If it existed, or had proof of its de- struction. Then he would say to him- self—trying not to say it, but still say- ing it with awfui, deliberate calmness— “But you did not intend to conceal the fact then, did you?’ He would net give himseif an answer; but would take up the possibility of discovery, should he give a new, faise deed. He would go through a scene In court, he on the witness stand, Lawyer Bannister cross-examining him. He rehearsed answers, even the voice and look with which he would give them. Sometimes, for weeks, he would rid his- mind of fear; laugh at the fantastic imaginings which had tormeénted him; then something—a newspaper story of a train wreck, with strange escapes; or a story of long-lost articles being oddly found—would bring back the whole dismal flood of doubts and tears, until he won- dered that he couid keep from crying out hif guilt to the world. During one such stress of consclence, he made up his mind that the only escape from his intoler- able situation was tne marriage of Daisy to young Worthington. He jug- gled with the thought of this plan until he believed that there would be no sin, legal or moral, in giving to his own daughter what he might not, with busi- ness deliberation and intention of profit, sell to another. He clung to the thought and hope that there might not be any necessity for a formal transfer of the property. Worthington, with his assur- @nce that the land was “ in the family,” would go ahead with the iron combine, and not require that signature to a deed which would fix a crime on Isaac Bun- ton. Here at last was a way out of his trouble. He thought of consulting Mr. Bannister, but shrank from an interview which might arouse the lawyer's sus- picions. - He would now insist with Dalsy upon which he had as yet only proposed: her marriage to Jack Worthington. He spoke to his wife about it. *‘Carrie,” he sald, “I've told you that Mr.- Worthing- ton favors his son's marriage with Dalsy; why can’'t that be brought about¥’ “Why?" she asked in reply, looking at him wearily. Her friendless life, her silent sorrow over the loss of her hus- band’'s companionship—his moody ab- straction had killed their companionship —her unspoken dread about Daisy’s will- ful behavior had wrecked her happi- ness. But he did not know. “I wonder you ask that, Carrie! he said irritably. ‘‘Here you are established in New York soclety, and happily so. Through whose influence? Mrs. Worth- ington’s. Why not fix our place in so- clety here, beyond any doubt, and finally, through this marriage “Isaac,” she said, and In so sad a volce that he leoked at her sharply, and was annoyed fo see tears In her eyes, “you gre not @ecelved about our position, here?” ‘“What do you mean?”’ he said, his voice sharpened by sudden suspicion. “I mean,” she sald, “‘that we are not in soclety here, ‘as it is called. We have not a friend here—I have not. You don't suppose that all this foolish business of going to balls and giving them, of going to dinners and giving them, is having anything to do with soclety here? There is a soclety here, as there is in every community, and a pleasant one, no doubt; but it is for those born here, those who have common interes grown up with a life-long friendshi, for those who have intimate associations, ambitions, and pur- poses allke. That i{s what makes so- clety here, as it does in White River— anywhere—there 1s no difference. We bhave nothing to do with that—cannot have. The women I have met-who are worth knowing give me just so much ‘ecognition as they are required to by heir husbands, to promote their hus- bands’ interests. There is not much pre- tense about it. I understand it, and they make no effort to assume that it is oth- erwise. But what have I—has any wo- man like me—to do with the plans, as- soclations, friendships, that make their real soclety—nothing! The women who are not worth knowing give me as much of their time and attention as they de- termine our entertainments to be worth. There is very little more pretense about them than the others. Neither class af- fords me or Daisy any soclety that is worth the trouble of securing. That 1s the place we occupy here; the place every other stranger equally ‘In soclety’ occu- pies, though they may pretend—but never belleve—otherwise."” ““Well, I declare, Carrie, you dr: a doleful picture; though it costs enough to be & better one—to amount to something,” her husband exclaimed. “Yes, it . amounts to something. It amounts to this: that I am so lonely, so friendless that—oh, Isaac, can’t we go home? Let us return to White River, where we are known and respected for what we are; where we have real friends and where your businss does not distract your mind from everything that used to make our home happy; where I have in- terests and occupations that never leave me so lonely that I seem to have lost both husband and child. Oh, my dear husband, may we not go home?’ she cried. “Carrfe, Carrie dear, I didn’t know it was llke that. I—I am very busy, I know, and affairs are not just right with me now; but all that will be straightened out soon; and then I'll have time to go around with you and we'll see things and do things together—I've always meant that. But, Carrie, I've not explained all that I should to you; this marriage wil help me in my business. Worthington ls the head of a powerful Interest here and with his gon married to Dalsy I could— naturally would—go Into the iron com- bine under very favorable conditions. What do you say to that?” “What can I say, Isaac? Young Worth- ington pays some attention to Daisy, but no more, I suppose, than he does to many other girls; no more, certainly, than other young men pay to Dalsy. What do you wish me to do? “Well that is a wonman's business,” he said, tasing her hand and patting it—and feeling a knife thrust in his heart, seeing her flush with pleasure at his action. “You'll be clever about that, as you are about everything. Can't you bring them more together? You can't be accused of fortune hunting, as Dalsy will have fortune of her own; and young Worthing- ton's father favors the match.” “I'll do what I can. I want to see Daisy married and settled down. she continued, after a pause, “Dalsy’'s be- havior troubles me. She has made ac- quaintences that I don't approve; men and women she doesn’t invite here and whom she can tell me nothing about ex- cept that they are ‘jolly people,’ who keep : THE SUNDAY CALL. her from being bored to death here. I don’t know how to keep her out of their company.” /By always golng with her, of codrse,” her husband replied. “If I insist upon that she rebels and threatens to take her rightful name, Mrs. Harry Lawton.” Isaac Bunton winced. ‘“Doesn’t she for- get that man?" he cried. “‘Forget him! She cherishes everything she has which was once his, as I would cherish what had been hers If she were dead. She loves his memory—it is the only thing she does love, I fear,” the mother said with a sigh. XV—-LOVE 1S BLIND INDEED. Another discussfon of this proposed mar- riage took place a little time before the talk between Mr. and Mrs. Bunton. Ca- leb Bannister, in his office in the building devoted to the affairs of the Worthing- ton interests, sent a clerk to inguire of Jack Worthington when it would be con- venient for him to see the chief counsel privately. In reply to the message young Mr. ‘Worthington announced himself. “I should have come to you, Jack. In your father's absence you are the head here, and you must make us old servants stand around,” the lawyer sald. “I'll let you come to me,” Jack replied, laughing, “when I cease to regard you as the real head here. Is there some business up to-day?" Jm, we may decide to call it business. Anyway, it's private,” the lawyer sald, leading the way to an inner room, where they were alone. “Jack, you know that your father has a plan concerning your marriage.” “Oh, yes!"” the young man answered with a smile, e haughty beauty from out of the West. “Is Miss Bunton & haughty beauty?” “She is certainly a beauty, and looks haughty. I suppose that does as well as the real thing. But, Mr. Bannister, father didn’t speak to me again on that subject before he started on the cruise, and so I concluded that he wasn't very serious about it.” “He did not speak to you again for the Eame reason that we did not tell you the cause of his {llness.” “Mr. Bannister! You don't mean"— “I mean that if we had told you the cause of your fathers ifiness you would have gone to him, impuisively, and that encounter would have been dangerous— as it would have been for him to speak to you again. Your father considers this matter very seriously, Jack.” ““He told me s6 much, sir; but I did not understand—Mr. Bannister, what am I to understand ?” ““Your question makes it easy for me to place the whole situation before you plainly.” “Which I wish you to dq, sir.” He spoke soberly now, for"he saw that the lawyer had in truth a serious matter to lay before him. ‘““What is it, Mr. Ban- nister?"” “It 1s this, Jack: your father, for busi- ness reasons which I know you fully un- derstand, for you've had to do with our efforts to close up that iron affair, wants to see Miss Bunton your wife.” “Yes, sir, that I understand. I ex- plained to father my reason for not want- ing to try to gaifl Miss Bunton's consent to marry me, if I could do so. What else is there?” ‘““What else was there?” “Nothing. I noticed that father did not look well, and urged him to go home— why. it was the very day he was taken 8o 1. “Yes, Jack, it was. Your father talked the matter over with your mother and me when he went home—I chanced to be there. His mind was finally made up then, and when he recovered he repeated instructions to me which he had given before his iliness began.” “I assume, from your manner, that those instructions relate to me.” “They @o. Your father has instructed me that, in the event of your not.having offered marriage to Miss Bunton by the time of bis return, I am to akter his will; in effect, to provide that Rupert shall have the control of affairs, after your father’s death, Instead of you, and that Yyou are to be so informed.” The lawyer made this statement slowly and distinctly, and apparently with no more personal interest In the matter than if it had related to a purchase of one kind of bonds, rather than another. The young man was dazed; for a minute he did not understand the words so calmly spoken. He was very grave, when from the con- fused rush of amazement his mind sin- gled out the one big fact—tnat his life's work, , prospects, ambitions were threat- ened. Then he slowly flushed, as he spoke the first thought that-came: “Did my mother approve?” ““There is no need of my telling you of your mother’'s feeling toward you; how her hopes and ambltions are wrapped up in your career.” “But, sir, you do not answer my ques- tion.” “Nor do I intend to, Jack. It is not my duty to say one word to influence your decisfon, one way or the other. Your father instructed me to give you this in- formation. I do so.” “You do so as our lawyer, but you are more than that to " the young man cried impulsively. *“You can't pretend to be indifferent to my prospects, you who have been so good a friend to me since your own son and I played together. ‘Why, Mr. Bannister, this is a terrible, an unjust condition to put upo. me. I have already spent hard years of study and work, trying to master the problems the head of our interests should be familiar with, You, and our otheg advisers, have been kind enough to say that I show promise of succeeding. That has encour- aged me, and urged me on to harder work, to closer application, to the study of plans reaching far into the future— plans that have expanded in many direc- tions beyond the merely commercial and industrial limits of our interests, and in- clude many forms of public usefulness and good, and philanthropy that would be wise because you have advised me— bu. all this time there has been no word that my continuance in this work de- pended on my marrying according to my father’s fancles. Why, Mr. Bannister, this is trivial—unworthy. of my father!’ He spoke rapidly and disconnectedly. He had never before tried to formulate those things — plans, opportunities, Ideals, which made up the seemingly assured picture of his future. He felt an intense, sturdy resolve in the big purposes of his life; purposes which his nature would have formed unalded, but which had been nourished by the sympathetic ambition of his mother, and skillfully directed by the man who now listened to him. “Why, Mr. Bannister,” he continued, ter a pause, as if expecting the lawyer to speak, “every plan of my life—except one —is wrapped up in the certainty of taking up this work for which I have been edu- cated, and in which all my hopes and am- bitions—except one—are centered. But the one exception makes it Im- possible for me to agree to my father's wish.” He paused again, but the lawyer only bowed, as if to say that he was prepared to hear more, if Jack wanted to go on. His attention was amply pald for. “Do you advise this mar- riage?” e young man abruptly asked. “1 only advise here on.busines: “It appears that this is to be a busi- ness affalr. vise?" In that view—will you ad- o. “Mr. Bannister, I expected more friend- liness from you,” Jack sald warmly. “I thought you agreed with my ideals—any- way, sympathized with my mother's am- bitions for a greater, wiser use of our fortune. Must you be only the lawyer— even to me?" The color in Mr. Bannister’s face slow- ly deepened a little, but he answered coolly, “Jack, you have no right to ask my personal views in this matter. I do not say that 1 have any, but if I had I should not- disclose them, inasmuch as your father has a perfect right to give the instructions /as to his will - when 1 have explained to you. The objections you have urged here have not been very reasonable—not at all so, in truth. ¥You protest that it would be unfair to cut you off from the future on which your mind and heart, too, set so much store. Yet you urge no reason why you should not comply with a wish of your father's which will assure that future to you.” It puzzled the young man that he was not understood, but he plunged on: “In- sist as you may that you are the lawyer and nothing else here, I shall consider you as something more. You are the father of my friend George; you have often been my host d scen me in the company of Miss Gertrude Paxton. I love her. If I am so fortunate as to gain her promise to marry me, I shall con- sider ‘myself the most fortunate man on earth. There can be no sacrifice I shall not cheerfully make, iIf necessary, to make her my wife. That is all, I sup- pose, that you require to know, for your authority to alter my father's will.” The lawyer controlled a desire to con- gratulate the youth who spoke these ro- mantic words, and his heaving calm fea- tures displayed only professional inter- est, and not much. of that, as he said, “No need of anticipating your fate, Jack. I am not to make the change in the will untll after your father's return. In the meantife I was only to inform you. The complexion of affairs may alter. It is possible—I do not ask for your con- fidence—that you may fall to secure Miss Paxton’s promise. Or have you already secured t?"” “No, sir,” Jack replied, flushing. “I have nothing but—hope!” “The change in the will would be a heavy blow to your mother's ambitions, as well as to yours.” “To be sure, sir. To take the role Ru- pert was destined for—and which he would have been happy in—a life of aim- less idleness, i a sacrifice for me. I would be more content to start with nothing but liberty to work, to make a name; but even that liberty is denied to Rupert, and will be to me. My father, for a whim, deprives my life of every purpose, ambition, hope that he can con- trol. But I have my own, of which he cannot deprive me; the hope of winning Miss Paxton and the purpose of making myself worthy of her.” “And if you fail to win her?"” “‘There,” said Jack, smiling, “I refuse to consider fallure, But if you mean to ask if I have any objections that would have interfer my father's plans, it I had neyer iss Paxton. I as- sure you that'f such objections. ““Then,"” Mr: nister, smiling for the first time, “your father's plans will be !avored,hy ton's obdurate heart —it it is's0 ‘@5 to remain obdurate when you make u.;geu hall we leave the matter in t shape “As you like, sir,” Jack sald, and went back to his own offices. A little aftem 4 o'clock he drove to the cornér of B and Twenty-third street. Leaving his cab there he strolled west on the street, and had passed Sixth avenue when he was observed by a young woman walking toward him, who said in a tone of surprise that was too great to be real, “Why, Grace! There is Jack Worthington strolling this way. Isn't it funny how often he happens to stroll along this way, at exactly this hour? I EBuppose the shops attract him. What flower is that in his coat? A little white chrysanthemum. I've forgot the meaning of that modest bloom. What is it, Grace? Goodness! Don’t glare at me as if I'd done something wicked. Now he's begin- ning to look preoccupled, and see every mortal girl on the block except you, al- though he saw me miles and miles away. “Florence Hartley, do stop talking non- sense!” Grace Paxton cried. . “Oh, I'm talkihg nonsense, am I? In- deed, if my young man-wants to happen along this way as I come from the school, T'll thank you not to call it nonsense., You know that Mr. Worthington comes to meet me, for I knew him long before you did. Now, don't blush like that. You make me look ridiculous!” “Oh, Florence, do stop, please, he'll hear us.” “Do him good,” persisted the irrepres- sible Florence. “Now in about three strides more he’ll have the surprise of his life—he'll discover us.” And in about three strides more Jack suddenly discovered the youmg women, and managed to look much more sur- prised than the encounter warranted, in view of the fact that a similar one oc- curred at that place and hour not less cften than three times a week. - “Oh, Mr. Worthington! You gave me such a surprise,” exclaimed Florence. ‘‘One so seldom mects any one one knows this side of Sixth avenue. Were you go- ing down to the ferry, or to see which way the tide runs in the North River?” “I'm golng to walk back to the avenue with you, If you'll let me,” Jack re- sponded. i “Ygll n:;y," Gl‘l;!: said, “If you'll prom- =e to do somethl: dread; Hartioys: ng ful to Miss “I might buy her some vi, . ‘would that do?"” S Pow “I'd prefer tea and jam, if T am to be consulted about my punishment.” “Oh, could we? Jack exclaimed de- Hghtcd. “Thank you for the luneluo:_ If Miss Paxton admits that you've not been very bad, I'll make the punishment tea and violets.”” ‘“I've been good,” calmly replled Miss Hartley. “I was pointing out to Miss Paxton how you always see all the other girls coming fgom school befors you see us. We are taught to observe closely at the school, and I call it good to practice what we're taught.” “Florence. Florence!” exclaimed Grace, in despal 3 “‘Miss Hartley is right,” Jack sald. “I've noticed a numher of the young women from the school. Is photography a part of applled design? Most of them carried cameras.” “‘Lunch baskets,” explained Grace. “Take the machinery out of a camera and the case makes a very good and de- ceptive lunch box. We carry paper bags, Miss Hartley and I, not having cameras.” “Nor being proud,” added Florence. “But how about the lunchroom at the school?” asked Jack, who was accumu- “Not satistying,” Grace said. “And -too expensive,” Florence amend- ed. omato soup—always tomato—five cents: cocoa, flve cents, and bread two cents.” “Expensive,” Jack admitted, “and lim- ited.” \ “Qh, thére's cake once a week!"- Grace sald. “But two hundred and fifty girls, all hungry, and one cake are out of draw- ing somehow."” “And, anyway,” Florence commented, “when a fellow has spent flve cents for soup—always tomato—or flve cents for cocoa and two cents for bread a fellow has gone about as far as a fellow can afford.” “You are not being a serious fellow, Miss Hartley,” Jack sald, looking at her with a doubting smile, “when you say tnat some of the young women are Te- stricted to seven cents’ worth of lunch— largely liquid?” / ‘‘Ask Miss Paxton.” “Florence!” sald Grace in a warning volce. “Oh, bother!” exclaimed plain spoken Miss Hartley. ‘“What are you frightened about? Mr. Worthington isn't going to tell on you. If it were not for Grace Paxton there would be girls in the school who would go without even seven cents’ worth of lunch—without a thing to cook in thelr ‘light housekeeping,’ without a room to do that housekeeping in. There! 1 feel better, Mr. Jack Worthington, that you know at last that such things exisf. It'll do you good to know that there are honest girls who almost starve to death trying to fit themselves to earn a living.” “It'll do me a lot more good if you'll tell me how to help such women. There are people in New York who'd feel it a privilege to help such strugglers. God knows that we—that those—wha would like to give help where it is deserved are beset by frauds, until we almost despair of finding the deserving.” “To be sure,” Miss Hartley said, “and if what I said seemed to imply that you could do what Miss Paxton is doing I made a stupld speech. Whatever other means you have, I know that you have not the means of penetrating their ar- mor of pride. Oh, but they are hard to help!” “I suppose,” remarked Grace thought- fully, “that no one who has not been in a position where help has been offered to them can realize the suffering such girls endure even at the thought of be- ing considered objects of assistance. I don’t express myself well; I mean that it seems strange to me that girls. I've tried to help won't see the matter as I do; that they're doing me a kindness to let me help them, and that it makes me suffer when they leggtheir pride stand in the way of a priv- 1lége I ask for myself. Do you under- tand?”’ she ked, turning to Jack. “Isn't it fals€ pride? I don't think that it I were ever to be in actual need and any one I belleved was sincere wanted to give me help that I'd decline it. It seems to me I'd understand.” She spoke so earnestly and looked so beautiful as she spoke that Jack felt her words graven on his mind. And they must have been, for he recalled them all at another Interview with Grace, when it Wrupg his soul to do so. “It seems to me,” he said, “‘that if help is needed and is offered In the right way by one we care for it's false pride to refuse it.” “So It seems to me,” Grace said. “How- ard has been lovely about thi she con- tinued, looking up brightly. He gave me $500—isn’t that lots of money—and told me to do just what I llke with it. “Let’'s stop talking about things that scratch one’s heart,” suggested Miss Hartley, “and talk about tea and jam. If we don't talk about it Mr. Worthing- ton may forget that he invited us.” “But we can't go,” Grace said In an aside to her friend. “‘Oh, yes, we can!” Miss Hartley sald aloud. “I'm six months older than you, so I'll be chaperon to you. You are from the West, where girls go alone any- where, so you ask me along with you and there you are—both of us provided against Mrs. Grundy.” ‘Come_ along,” Jack sald, laughing. “Mrs. Grundy permits young ladies to take tea with me in full afternoon. I've asked her.” “That’s a fairly good reason for going,” said Miss Hartley, “but a better one is that I'm hungry; and besides it isnt every day I have a best young man to show off in the tea rooms.” Miss Hartley was much more amiable than she pretended to be and walking up the avenue to the tea rooms she always lingered longer than her companions where a window display was to be looked at; and, after tea, she asked Jack to the Hartley home, and it was ever so much more of a task for her to take off her wraps than it was for Grace, who was surprised that she had been talking to Jack half an hour before Florence came downstairs, And so, on many afternoons. After tea some days, while Florence read In a quiet corner of the Hartley parlor, Jack and Grace renewed their musical interests amgl if at times the music lagged the interest did not—and Florence read on. A score of times that bright Novem- ber—a hundred, a thousand, ten thousand times in a stngle afternoon—Jack would ‘wonder if he dared to k the question his heart longed to ask; but he would not risk it until some sign gave him more hope. And did he see no sign in Grace's eyes? Love is blind, indeed. . XVI—A MAN'S FACE IN THE DARK. For a time Harry Lawton prospered and was happy. He was tolerated as.a chagacter with some privileges in the district where he first pursued his oc- cupation as a peddler of sea food. His popularity with the class of men and women who ‘largely made up the life of the district late at night assured his im- munity from police annoyance, for the police in a way were a part of that class. Harry's patrons were men and women the police were pald to shileld from the law, and his association led to a friendly intimacy which prompted the police to grant free to Harry privileges of barter; something not important enough to be charged for by the police; and, bes'des, Harry's trade was not in itself criminal, 80 there was no real reason why the ‘p:uco should make him pay for pursuing Bessie Day was Harry's chief source of the gossip he peddled with his crabs and lobsters. Bessle seldom had work, now. The big playhouses demanded younger, pretyler and sprightlier women in the cho: or ballet. Bessle had worked in the best of them, but {llness had robbed her of most of her attractive- ness, and when she did work it was usually In the poorer houses where Harry first met her and where the pay was pitifully small and not very certain. But in her idle days she haunted the em- ployment offices where chorus and ballet were" and sometimes got short season work In the back rows of dancers or singers, where a crowd, or a volume of sound, was all that the stage manager sought. It was in this manner that Bessle early heard news which Harry peddied at night when Bessie had made up his basksx of sea food. When Bessle worked, Nora, her sister, made up Harry’'s basket. This was hard work for Nora, now that she was employed, at three dollars a week, In the office of the Morning Chronicle, addressing envelopes, wherein were sent throughout the land glowing pen pictures of the exalted worth of the Chronicle as a friend and defend- er of the poor and oppressed. Often this work kept Nora downtewn until late at night, and she was so tired when she reached home that it was & struggle to keep awake until the still later hour when Harry set out; to prepare his basket, the clean towel to go over the sea Tood, the clean white apron which Harry must wear and which Nora must wash and Iron when her poor-back ached and she could scarcely lift her weak hands. But she did all this, as many women had done many things for Harry, uncomplain- ingly; and for the same reason—God pity her—because she loved him! But in the district, even In the unwhole- some hours when Harry plaintively cried, “Sea food! Sea food!" there was a rest- less, a brutal demand, for novelty. Ped- dlers of other food, more fancifully dressed, with quainter or more musical cries, came there and bid for Harry's trade. They .took so much of it that sometimes Harry cried his wares until the brightening east foretold the sun and drove his customers, with other miasmas of the night, from out the sight of man. He extended his route to the less popu- lous side streets, where he sold his food cheaper and was more often robbed, and where the police took from him not only bis stock in trade, if they fancied it, but demanded small sums of money under threat of driving him off the streets al- together. Harry knew that it was the rule of the district, where most of his customers paid tribute to the ‘“guardians of the law’ for the privilege of defying the law, so he bowed to the rule of the fringe of the district But with growing {ll luck, with accumu- lating hardships, with the cold of the nights_biting more savagely through his thin efothing, he always smiled—"Smiling Harry!" During the holiday season Har- ry's business languished almost to a van- ishing point. There were more peddlers to compete for his trade; his customers were more prosperous in the easy ex- change of money of the season; so the sea food man provided only his own un- sold wares at meal times at home. Bessle was not working, and Nora's wages, if Mr. Carson had not deducted something from them, were just enough to pay the rent. Harry had left the district late one holiday time night and was crying his wares in a cross street: “Sea food! Sea food!” smiling gayly though his voice trembled with the cold and his frame shook with weakness. ‘“Sea food! Sea food!” he cried, smiling gally. “Hey, there, Grinny!" called a police of- ficer, who stood on & corner, talking idly with a thief about a murder that had been done In the neighborhood within an hour. Harry obedlently stopped—he knew what was wanted—and held back the towel which covered his basket. The of- ficer selected a crab, which Harry wrap- ped in brown paper, and which the officer then slipped Into the capacious skirt pocket of his uniform overcoat. Harry covered the basket and started down the street. As he did so the thief slipped a hand under the towel and drew out a o, no!” sald Harry, “you mustn’t take that.” “Why, you're a lobster yourself,” the thief said, and the officer laughed encour- agement of the witticism. “This is a Christmas present from you to me, Grin- ny."” “I want it, please,” begged Harry. “T've a customer for that, and it's the best one I have. Please give it back.” “T'll give it to you this way,” the thief said, and he swung it at him; the hard, rough shell cutting Harry's face. A man none of the three had noticed, but who had paused abruptly a few feet off, now, with a cry of surprise at the sound of Harry's voice, sprang at the thief, caught him by the throat and shook him, as he exclalmed, “You damned cowar “Take him off!” gasped the thief, “he’s choking mel™ There was a white flash of the officer’s club, and the man released his hold on the thief's throat and sank to the side- walk. (Continued next Sunday.) e — JOE ROSENBERG'S. :*rb!b!bd'%t thehsbreirely FE3FEFETTE2 4 If a.girl loves a man, that's HER business. s If a man loves a girl, that's HIS flm’nan. k4 Pt If they love each other, that's THEIR business. thr [fthey marry and he wants o o his wifo to have a per- o o fect form, # That's MY Business. e % Joe Rosenberg o copser FirTER. FF2EFFETETETEE & F&& & 816 Market Street, * 11 0’Farrell Street. e * The Home Bood Corsets. B3 o scenr..... e o WNemo, La Vida, La Cor- ofp sots- Price $1.50,$3.50,55.00 sirrirehoirrirorinh sheobobep bl ow