The evening world. Newspaper, December 17, 1921, Page 15

ae a | PRI TA RO ‘ THE EVENING WOBLD’S FICTION SECTION, SATURDAY, DECEMBER 17, 1921. 8 with one arm and hauled Idalene’s body out of the way with the other just in time. HB next Idalene knew she was lying on a long velvet cushion in a high-afched chamber hung with curtains like woven jewels, Somebody who might have been an angel was leaning over her. Her wonder drugged her torture and she sighed: “I got to heaven after all!” The angel spoke with- angetic ten- derness: ‘Not yet. But you've got to go through the other place. Both your legs are broken and setting them won't be much fun.” Then she heard another angel, & tall woman angel with a halo in her hair, ory: “Oh, she’s the little girl we saw at the dance.” . Idalene shrieked hysterically: ‘I’m the one they were all laughing at, There was a bull pup—and two dol- lars! Two dollolli—a pup—& pup’—— At length Idalene grew used to the rigid stocks of the plaster casts and could study the incredible graces of her bedroom and her bed. Pamela Shiel's home was a masterpiece of the builder’s art, as she herself was a masterpiece of human architecture, its decoration. and management. She and her house guest, Dr. Walt Breen, had gone to the Junior Prom as lookers-on, They had seen Idalene Jaughed at, and Pamela had dragged Walt away to keep him from knock- ing together the heads of the riotous bystanders. 2 Pamela’s heart ached as the village wallflower poured out the history of her self-disdain. When Idalene’s ter- rified mother was fetched, Pamela’s mother cooked up a story that saved Idalene from confessing her attempt at anything so melodramatic as sul- cide. : They kept the girl a prisoner of lux- ury until her bones were healed and had demonstrated their ability to re- sume their offices. Then Idalene was shipped back to her dismal fate. Some people are hdmesickest when they get back home. Idalene was wofully homesick. Her little revolt had failed, Her dash for liberty had ended in a return to the penitentiary where she must serve a life sentence within the gray walls of loveless, husbandless, childless inanity. Pamela Shiel hated to be baffled. Soon after Idalene left, the house filled with guests, friends of her father and mother and friends of her own, But she could not get Idalene out of her mind, To give her wealth, beauty, grace, suitors was beyond Pamela's abilities. She was not a god- dess. But on an afternoon she spoke of her while she was sauntering in the garden with Walt Breen, a kind of dis- tant relative and ambiguous between lover and friend. They came upon a tribe of roses in full glory, One of them, the queen of them al, was aglow with beauty. As they mar- velled at it, Breen noted far down in the dark bush, pressed against the wall in a perpetual twilight, one stunt- ed, crinkled dwarf with shabby and tarnished petals, He thrust his hand down and plucked it, Pamela sighed over the pathos of it: ‘Poor little waif, what makes it so wretched?” “It's starved for sunlight,” said Breen. ‘This big empress here has been flooded with it, while this un- lucky member of the same family got none at all, It’s like the difference between you and—and—Idalene.” This was a bit tactlesa It implied that Pamela was what she was be- cause of her unbroken good luck. But then Walt was tactlesas and proud of it, He had not even realized the blow he had dealt. He was pondering aloud: “I wonder if—no, I suppose not, Still’—— : Pamela read the undercurrent of his thoughts, “You mean you wonder what would happen if we flooded Ida- lene with sunlight.” He looked at her, & little startled by her intuition, He nodded, She spoke up: “Let®.” This was too quick for his slow methods, ‘ “It might kih her, Transplanting from the shade to the full light is dan- gerous.” “Let's risk it. Better die of too much sunshine than never know any of it.” The next afternoon Pamela aad Breen motored to the Nobbin home. Mrs. Nobbin asked them to set down a minute whilst she run up and told Idalene, who wa'n’t very spry on her limbs just yet. When she told Idalene of her swell callers, the ungrateful girl actually be- gan to crumple up her chin and pucker her eyes and whimper, She was think- ing of the grand times she had had in their society and it emphasized her present woe, : “You'd ought to be ashamed of your- self,’ her mother stormed, “You'd cory. But these tears were rather April’s rain than November's, HE guests at the Shiel home were lounging about the ter- F I race when Pamela and Walt returned with their prey. When Idalene had been sent jip to her room- Pamela returned to her guests. The majestic Miss Trevor voiced the aquestion the others felt: “What's that you brought with you —a new kitchenmaid?” “That's our estar guest,” said Pa- mela,’ “I want you people to quit making love to each other and make love to her, She's a poor little Cin- derella ‘I’ve pulled out of the ashes. She needs flattery and flirtation and- attention; and that’s your programme for the next few days.” SHE LEANED HER ELBOWS ON THE SILL AND SAID: “WELL, THE WALLFLOWER HAS COME BACK TO THE WALL.” onght to thank your stars you're alive a tall.” “why?” A terrible word, “Why?’—a word of unsubmissive atheism, questioning Heaven's wisdom and goodness, Mra Nobbin was aghast before it aa be- fore a blasphemy. “You wicked, ungrateful girl!” she raged, ‘What under the shinin’ heav- ens has got into you?” “I'm just mis’ble; that’s all.” “What of it? We're not put on earth to have a good time, You got mo right to be happy. Nobody has.” Unannounced and unheard, Pamela came into the room, She greeted Ida- iene with a kiss and a pat, then turned to Mrs. Nobbin to justify the visit, “We've been thinking that Idalene ought to have a change of acene, life, travel. She ougtt to go to some bright place.” Mrs. Nobbin answered that with ease: “If we could have afforded trips and bright places, I’d ‘a’ went there myself,” Pamela had a moment's understand- ing of the deleful lot of such women who have no hope, Bo youth, no pros- pect of charm, But Mre. Nobbin was beyond her reach, There was etill a gambling chance for the daughter. Pamela explained that she had come to bundle up Idalene and take her home for a visit, Idalene began to ®* Men and women were alike delight- ed. They were all decent, kind- hearted souls or Pamela would not have had them as friends, Idalene would be a new toy, and her cultiva- tion an odd twist to the old business of gallantry. Having given her orders, Pamela went back to Idalene. The gifted and versatile Ninette was already at work upon her with all the ancient and mod- ern arta of beauty, Idalene looked up from a ferocious shampoo, her eyes filled with-soap. After her hair had been washed, dried, brilliantined and put up for further attention, her skin was smeared with cold cream and stimulated with lotions, rubbed with ice, massaged and pinched and pulled; her eyes and eyelasfies were minutely regulated, her hands and nails brought to their best. Then Pamela took her by her shoulders and taught her to sit right, stand right, walk with easy pride. These lessons could not be mastered at once by the slovenly muscles, but Idalene acqui a new idea of the beauty of carriage. ‘Then the maid began to reform Idalene's hair, Ni- nette dealt with it as = master gold- amith might who wreathea a coronet for a duchess out of drawn gold. Ida- lene gazed at the stranger in her mir- ror and murmured, “That can’t be me.” “That's only part of ;ou that you've kept buried,” said Pamela. “Wait!” She had eelected from her own vast ermory of dresses an afternoon frock as simple as a Greek idyll. Skirts had been very short when it was new. They were longer now and the gown was gest right for Idalena She put Idaleme into it, with stook- ings to match, and tobped it with @ hat that revised her whole effect as as artist will change the entire appeal of a portrait by a slash or two of the brush, When Pamela drew her away from the mirror to go down and surprise the guests, Idalene reverted to her usual timidity, She hung back, whis- pering: “I’m scared. I don't know how to act before swells,” Pamela laughed at such fears, “Don't act,” shé said. “And re- member that real swells are just plaim people who don’t have to act.” Pamela had not told Walt Breen of the plot that she had imposed upon the other guests, and he could hardly belleve his eyes when Warren and Eaton, two of the most critical young bloods, stepped forward and vied with each other in paying court to Idalene. She was completely confused, and with one gallant on either side found herself drifted down the marble steps to the sunken garden. Breen found a curious jealousy if his heart, the jealousy one feels for his burdens, annoyances and the wards of his charity, He decided that the two men were making fun of Idalene, and that angered him. « By the time he had joined the trio the two men were actually quarrelling over Idalene, She was in a seventh heaven of terror, and when Walt came up glowering she almost swooned with the bliss of being fought for, She had forgotten that she had been duped once before, but that was by crass col- legians, These were delicate fiatterers. Eaton and Warren retreated frém the field and went back to a group of women to brag of their debut. Idalene went happily to her room. Over her shoulder she heard Pamela say to Dr. Breen: “Walt, do you think it quite fair to me to show such marked attention to Idalene?” She could not hear Pamela explain- ing to the puzzled Walt that this jealousy was only a game that every- body was playing. she did not know that it roused Walt to a certain re- sentment in her behalf. He was of an old and wealthy line, but he cared lit- tle for riches or the refinements and distinctions they create. He preferred to live among plain people on a vast Western ranch, where he practised * fe medical skill on Americans, Mexicans, Indians, horses, cattle and swine with complete equality. He was fascinated by Pamela and had about decided to ask her to marry him and share the primitive conditions his money permitted him. She was tired of her complex life and cager to go with him, waiting only for the ex- act word. And now she disappointed him. She seemed to be revealing an jinworthy condescension toward Idalene, treating her aS a puppet—when she was, after all, a human being with as high a right to dighity as anybody There.was moonlight that night, fol- lowing the shadowy blow of the dining room, and Idalene prospered exceed- ingly, Eaton and Warren wrangled over her as before; their women glared. They danced on the terrace, and Idalene did not do so badly. At least, Eaton and Warren whispered that she was divine, and that helped her to be better than herself. And she had the rapture of being cut in on Walt would not dance, and he did not somehow enjoy Idalene’s success, He found it difficult to get I[dalene alone, and when he grumbled a compliment it seemed to alarm her. She seemed to evade him. She was afraid to let herself love Walt; she was afraid to be seen with him lest it hurt Pamela's feelings. Thus she obtained a sincere elusive- ness that gave her a mystic charm in the eyes of Walt, who did not care for beauty to excess, and who felt for Idalene something of what Pygmalion felt for his sculptured Galatea. Walt had not put the finishing touches on Tdalene, but he had brought her from the quarry, and he felt an interest in her that no other woman had ever inspired. She was not beautiful under analy- sis. She never would be. Her features and her members were not modelled with felicity. Prue Nickerson had been born to all exquisiteness of line and color and rhythm. But Prue thought silly, selfish thoughts, and though she would get lowers and a husband al! too easily, she would not hold them long. The earlier Idalene had also thought silly, selfish, man-hunting thoughts, Now she thought of beauty and the graces of the spirit. Her soul was playing upon her body as a master would play a masterpiece upon an or- dinary violin. Prue’s soul was wasting her resources as a cheap fiddler would make a Stradivarius rattle with a jig. Idalewe, like most women, responded to the opportunity for physical self- improvement with lightming-like ra~ pidity. Hardly a week had passed when Pamela felt that she was ready to take revenge on the callow youth who had broken Idalene’s heart at the Junior Prom, The Shiel home was not far from the college, and invitations were rgre Order Your Evening World in Advance