The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, September 25, 1904, Page 15

1E man grasped the lever of the French touring and the n stopped so sud- hat it fairly sprang back- was narrow, and the n the path of 1 the imperious carriage she held the key to the car, situ When the dust L.d sub- 5 t n saw that above the im- r s re rose a face of singular & aureole of P HEY ground, like children , watching the clouds drifting and changing above them “It's like & picture s Fairlie softly. h sat on at a pi gallery,” assented the young ranch- m ¥ . “lwt's choose pictures, [t L n do. See, there's a beau- ur n robed in white—she's her first. Look, decidedly; and spread out it {s— of nooks and corners,” i there are broad piazzas with vines growing all over them.” 0Of ¢ e,” with prompt assent, “that's ideal house for a ranch. Loox re, Mise Fairlie! See what is coming up to your piazza,” as a small- er-cloud rolled up tumultucusly. “That's a horse and rider, Mr. Rob- excitedly. Sure, it Is you, just starting out for a ride over your rench! See the vell on your hat?” sh hed with almost childish of the child's play at “make eve There's another rider now. y that 1s.” gazed earpestly at the passing Let's “I thought umphant! 80, cried the man tri- with a dashing ar, “it's me—on going together over our man’s hand reached out in- stinctively as if to brush the clouds away, and the hand was promptly caught and held in a larger, stronger one. : “Let's make it true,” he whispered earncstly; “don’t go back East again. © time to save her!" The car gprang for girl closed her eves su had ridden so fast. “Accidént?” hissed the' mah's voice in her ear. was dri I heard ber had never s Just then 1 ] an z 1 ages. wag much good—I turne n he wanted to drive me things—an lore with her , and I w rt whe g He the fop of the hill said the man cur plur came the 'WITHOUTANTE LTINS 000055550% | By Otho B. Senga g% ® Stay here and make It true.” She shook her head half sadly. “You don't like it here. couldn’t make the sacrifice—" “It isn’t that. I do like it. I like everything about jt. I never felt so near the sky before—never before so realized the warmth and comfort of the earth. To me the breadth of vision is ating, But my work lles else- You What work?” gravely. “Why, my work—my business—my life work—" “I suppose you mean your writing— your editorial work—" “Certainly. I have no other.” “We're not going yet,” putting out a detaining hand, “we're going to watch the sunset and talk about our house and plan about our wedding. I don’t need to tell you that I love you, dear.” “But—but, you've known me only a month—" “That’s long enough to know that I love you.” “And I know nothing of your—your antecedents—'" hesitatingly. . “I haven't any,” shortly. “In New England,” slowly, “one's antecedents count for a good deal.” The man laughed bitterly and then his face grew grave. “Please sit down again, Miss Falirlie; I foresee a conflict between your East- ern pride and prejudice and my West- ern independence and intolerance, and I am not equal to it standing.” She ylelded, not unwillingly. “A man without antecedents—" began., “In this section of God's country,” he interrupted firmly, “a man stands for just what he {s. No one cares who his reiatives are if he ‘is ‘square and white,” and does the right thing here. Never mind my ‘antecedents,’ Agnes. Don’t you love me?" He put out his hand and softly touched a fold of her riding habit. She trembled at the suggestion of a caress she 2 1t seamed to the girl as if the wheels @14 not strike the ground as they pass- ed through spac When they reached the foot of t ill ‘she realized sud- denly that the chauffeur had been hold- ing her in the car with an arm firm and urflinching. He did not apologize when he removed its support. They w turning into the village. “Which *strcet?” he demanded; and she pointed to a white gabled cottage. He dently a well-trained chauf- feur of a multi-millionaire bachelor. He knew enough to -~ar his place and not e advantage of an awkward sit- WAS ev tor's wife followed her to the ing volubly. Now, don’t stay around that place, fretting your soul out, Miss Carleton. The doctor will get some neighbor to stay with her.” The car panted up the hill “Isn’t this dreadful?” asked the girl EDENTS in the tender touch. “I wish you'd go away,” she plead- ed. “Won't you go away while I think it all out?” The odd, boyish abruptness that had 80 often amused her came back again. “Go away? Not much! Tl stay right here. I may be of great assist- ance to you in making up your mind.” She sat in troubled silence. Presently he began speaking again, low and tenderly. “You have not said that you love me, Agnes, but I believe that you do—" “I—I am afraid that I do—" with something very like a sob in her voice. “I have often wondered how it would seem to—to care so much for some one as to wish to be with him al- ways—now I know—"" He controlled the wild impulses of his impetuous heart, and only said gently, “I believe I can make you happy—" “There are some things,” she in- terrupted, speaking slowly and with a painful effort, “that it is only right you should know. I—I think I am older than you—' * he assented calmly, “I knew “You—" after a pause, “you are not more than thirty-fivé?” questioningly. “I'm awfully sorry, dear, but you've 8ot to cut off ten years. I'll be twen- ty-five next Thursday—" She gasped, recoiling as from a dash of cold water, and covered her face with slender, trembling hands. “It's a shame, isn’t it, sweetheart?"” coaxingly, “but don’t you mind. We don’t” need to hang our family record on the outside of the house, and my gray hair is so deceiving no one will suspect. Let's talk about the wedding - =—if it could be this week—" “This week!” in startled consterna- tion. “Who ever heard of such a thing?” “When a man has lived a whale quarter of a century, don’t you think he ought to have a birthday gift—the one he wants? I want you, Agnes. ‘We can be married then—there is no need of waiting, and we’ll just run over to "Frisco, and take a trip somewhere— across the ocean—perhaps,” watching . the averted face closely, ‘“perhaps to Sydney to see Jack.” With a sharp cry of pain she turned a white, frightened face to his, “Jack! What do you know of Jack?” ‘Only good, dear one,” soothingly, ‘“‘your brother is well and doing finely in his profession—" “Do you know—all about Jack?" she whispered. “Everything.” She was crying softly. He put his arms about her and drew her to him with tender, comforting words. “Look at me, sweetheart. Don't you know who I am? Think of that last day you saw Jack—" g She gazed long and earnestly Into his ace. “Not Robert Boyle!” last. “Robert MacNeal. Doyle,” swered slowly, with a certa ancestry in his voice. My father never forgave me, and so when I came West I reversed my name and am known here as MacNeal Roberts. Good old Converse and Eleanor are the only ones who know the truth. I think I loved you from that day when you came to see Jack—you were so brave ard true. When Dick Gonverse brought his Roston bride home, and I learned she was your friend, I asked her to prevail upon you to visit her. I meant to win you if I could.” She touched his face softly with her finger tips. “And‘you—you served—" “1 served a year in prison,” firmly, “hence the white locks, sweetheart.” “A year that belonged to Jack—" she sobbed. “There was no other way,” he ar- gued earnestly, “Jack wouldn’t have lived a month, shut there in prison. It was only a bit boylsh bravado anyway, but the authorities were de- termined to make an example of some college fellow. Jack’s sudden sickness gave me the chance to clear him, and to help those stupid detectives prove it against me—they knew it was one of us. I've never regretted it, but that is why I have no ‘antecedents,’ = She put her arms about his ni and she cried at he an- in pride of held her face inst his. “You don’t need antece love you for what you are (Copyright, 1904, by Otho B. Senga.) THE SAN FRANCISCO SUNDAY CALL. 5 HE girl in the hammock laid her book face downward beside her, a faint, skeptical smile visible about her mouth. #"“How do you go about it was the Ruestion that her eyes asked of the radiant landscape. “It's all very well to say that a woman, if she have not a hump upon her back, may marry whom she will. But how would she go about it?” The scratching of a match broke the summer stillness and her medita- tivns were suddenly precipitated from the general to the concrete. She glanced where a man's form bulked in one of the huge wicker chairs. With his hand forming a screen he was lighting a fresh cigar, seemingily oblivious to everything in life except that and the Engineering Jonrr_\m wkich lay in his lap. He was her brother’s best friend and she had known him for years, not with much satisfaction, it must be confessed, since he was uownousl.y a “man’s man,” living in a man's werld and regarding the rustle of feminine skirts with something of the same feeling that he did the humming of a mosquito. It certainly would serve him right, her thoughts ran on, if some lady would just wind him round and round her finger, make him fetch and carry at her beck and call, reduce him to a perfect mush of sentiment. Some- thing in her steady gaze caused him to move uneasily, then look up. “Did you speak?” He had the perfunctory manner of a pergon who knows he must keep guard over himself or he will be guilty of an - some remissness. A heroic resolution to do his duty was visible in his face. “No,” she drawled, “I didn't speak. But it you don’t mind very much 1 think I will. I'd like to ask you, for instance, if you have ever had a ladies’ day?” ‘{1 ladies’ day?” he repeated help- lessly, shaking off his eyeglasses with a characteristic movement, while his tor- mentor watched him as if he had been some sort of a specimen that she had lmpllo‘(’l upon hll. pin. Then a light dawned upon him. “You mean such as they have at the clubs—a day when the place is given up to your sex and other matters go to the wall? W;.I’li«go. I don’t know that I ever have “Don’t you think it is time?” she ,” he admitted, but he still hadtl!jolmul!nlm that sug- IT SEEMEV TO THE i GIRL AS IF THE WHEFLS o JI0NOT STRIKE GROUND AS THEY PASSED THROUGH_ SFACE - TEMPTING OF nervously. “Oh, excuse me, I know you are making good time, but it seems as If we were crawling. That woman has the dearest baby. She cannot die and leave the poor little thing all alone.” : “Did you ever think, Miss—Miss Carleton,” said the man, watching her curiously, “that the baby might be bet- ter off if the mother died? The wom- an is poor. You or some other rich woman might adopt the child and give By Hei (O gested a well-nigh unconquerable de- sire to return to it. She stretched out her hand. Reluctantly he handed it over. “Did it ever occur to you,” she asked blandly, “that the creature who tempt- ed Adam so successfully, who is at the bottom of everything, as it were, must th Gordon § be as—as intricate as your old engi- neering problems?” “I have always considered Adam very weak,” was his evasive an- . “Men aren’t like that nowadays.” At these boastful words a resolution that had been taking form in her mind became full-fledged. She was Inspired with the sense of a mission. Her neg- lected sex should find an avenger in her. “You think you. wouldn't have eaten of the apple, therr?” There was a new note in her voice. It was at the same time a challenge and an appeal. As if it were something absoluteiy new it came to his mind that giris were delicate, helpless creatures, and a wave of tenderness for the sex swept over him. Still he was very positive that he wouldn't have eaten the apple, and something in the soft, babyish, yet dependent way in which she looked at him caused him to explain at great length why. “Has talked fifteen minutes by the clock,” she was thinking in high glee, but outwardly she was all deferential, honey-sweet attention. “I'm sure he wouldn't have ylelded if he’d been like you!” was her earn- est comment when he finished speak- ing, and at the words he was con- sclous of a pleasant expansiveness, a caressing sense of satisfaction as de- lightful as it was unusual. It was as if he were growing taller, broader and more severely strong before her very eyes. “Go back to your reading. I'm not going to bother you another minute.” She jumped up and, laying her hand on his arm, finished ingenuously, “You don’t mind my bothering you, do you? A girl gets so tired of woman talk! A chat like this is like a plunge in a cold stream,” and she vanished into the house and scurried to her room, ‘where she threw a kiss to her image in the mirror with the remark, “you're doing well for a beginner, my love.” Down on the broad piazza the man had returned to the closely printed calumns before him, but after a half- he gave up. . 'm stale!” he murmured, throwing the paper on the table. ‘“Wonder it a better home than the mother ever couid?” “No, you don’t understand. So many men say such things because they do not understand women—and bables, It isn’t the home—it's the love.” She had forgotten that the man besidé her was 8 servant. She was thinking only of the baby that had cooed confidingly in her arms while the doctor worked over its mother. “I've seen it curled in her arms. If she died no arm would encir- cle it in just the sama way, No, you can't understand. because you are a man. But I—I've felt always that I was cheated out of something—something that every other girl I knew had—a mother. There's a loneliness—I can’t Just tell you what.it 1s. Sometimes it comes in the dar's when you are alone, and sometimes when yot are among other people and see other’ girls with their mothers. [ can’'t describe my feeling, but & fust felt as if I must save the mother to that baby.” The man did not answer, but the ma- chine did. It gave a despairing groan ot up the incline in a way that A have made its makers proud. The touring car stood outside . the humble cottage until the girl came out again. Her ey one lfke stars. t here in time. She Is alive you very much. Is Mr. Bene- e to-day?” d and put a hand om you please thank him for mew will do so in person when we Miss Carleton out to is hostess. ‘“You know ed into a haughty Berk- Carleton?" he mur- only since she is old Charley ess, they spell it with & crossed the room . to. where leton was chatting with her he extended her hand core see Mr. Benedict home ally glad to have this ¢ hank him for his tour- car which I borrowed so uncere- ously this afternoon.” auffeur?” voice Miss Carleton - as it for support, but host and hostess had drifted away. “I—I thoug! i “Of course,” he sald with a. quizzical has been flve years since 1 then there were the He was looking at her hair. » glad to L] ¢ goggles.” “I think T like it best tied down with a vell,” he remarked, irrevelantly. “Please s let me tal urged. e order, and th Barrington road. e broke the your carriage away and e in my car,” he then gave the back over the end ord right here,” he said, glee s they slowly climbed the hill. Then his voice turned serious. “I like to break records—and yet here I've wasted five years away from you, wandering the world over. 1 never realized until this afternoon why it was that I was lonesome, too. I've been wanting just you—and I didn't know L A And then the big car shot Into the dim shadows of the narrow lane and not even the.night birds and the stars could see the answer he read In her eyes. (Copyright, 1904, by T. C. MeClure.) ADAM where she's gone? Never before real- ized how interesting she is—for a girl. 1ad I ever had a ladies’ day? Umph! That was funny!” and he smiled at the recollection of it. For the next two or three days she avoided him as much as possible. “I must give him plenty. of ln: she decided craftily, “and never lef him suspect that he’s taken the bait.” On the third day he proposed a long tramp for her. “You don’t want a silly thing like me,” she protested with modest seif- depreciation. “I can't talk about bridges and buttresses and calssons all those interesting things that know about. I shall only .bore hat was it you sald the other day about the _creature that 'tempted Adam?" was his laughing reply. “Per- want to take up a new line of you “I just made him think I was the most dependent thing that ever lived,” she confided shamelessly to her mirror that night.. “My timid little fest could scarcely get over the ground without help, and as for.climbing fences—"" She went off into a peal of laughter as she remembered how solicitous he had been abcut her getting over a fence that was in their way—and she, who could turn a handspring as well as either one of her brothers. “Of course, I couldn’t do It If I really liked him,” she murmured. Then the girl in the mirror averted her face quickly. “I'm jugt doing it to give him a much-needed lesson, you know,” she went on. This time the girl looked into her eyes for a moment. After that she threw herself on the bed and burfed a hot face in the pillows. As the weeks went by the startling conviction that there was one girl in the world who never bored him, never ~made him long to escape and.get back to his own kind, came to be a cerfalnty to the man. They were standing under the big apple tree in the back garden. From < the ground she picked up one of the round, smooth apples and began to eat it. Something- in ‘the action brought back to him the conversation: they once had about Adam, and he wondered how he' could ever have been so crass, so dense. He held out his hand. “Please, Eve,” he beseechied. “But you are not like Adam,” she began, archly. -~ “Neo,” he said meaningly, “he waited ifor temptation. I—don’t .intend to wait!" And that night she whhpm',r girl in the mirror, “What y says Is true!” . (Copyright, 1904, by Frances Wilson,)