Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 40, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 February 1912 — THE GIRL from HIS TOWN [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

THE GIRL from HIS TOWN

By MARIE VAN VORST

nh'tratioK by ML G. KETTNER

(OopyMcht. 1810, by The Bobbs-Merrlll U SYNOPSIS. Dan Blair, the 22-year-old son of the fifty-million-dollar copper king of Blairtown, Mont, is a guest at the English home of Lady Galorey. Dan’s father had been courteous to Lord Galorey during his visit to the United States and the courtesy is now being returned to the young man. The youth has an ideal girl In his mind. He meets Lily, Duchess of Breakwater, a beautiful widow, who Is attracted by his immense fortune and takes a liking to her. When Dan was a boy, a girl sang a solo at a church, and he had never forgotten her. The Galoreys, Lily and Dan attend a London theater where one Letty Lane Is the star. Dan recognizes her as the girl, from his town, and going behind the scenes introduces himself and she remembers him. He learns that Prince Ponlotowsky is suitor and escort to Letty. Lord Galorey and a friend named Ruggles determine to protect the westerner from Lily and other fortune hunters. Young Blair 1 goes to see Lily; he can talk of nothing but Letty and this angers the Duchess. The westerner finds Letty ill from hard work, but she recovers and Ruggles and Dan invite her to supper.

CHAPTER XL—Continued. "Yes,” she accepted, “out of sight of Blairtown and everybody I ever knew. I went away the next day.” She lifted her glass oi champagne to her lips. “Here’s one thing I oughtn’t to do,” she said, “but I’m going to just the same. I’m going to do everything i want this evening. Remember, I let you drink six glasses of chocolate soda once.” She drained her glass and her friends, drank with -her. “I like this soup awfully» What is it?” — Just touching it with her spoon. "Why,” Ruggles hastened to tell her, “it ain’t z a party soup, it’s Scotch broth. But/soineboW it sounded gdod on the bill of fgre. t 1 fixed the rest of the dinner up for you and-Dan, but I let myself go on the soup, it’s my favorite.” She did not.eat it. however, although she said it was splendid and that she was crazy .about it. “Did you coipe East then?” .Dan returned to what she had been saying. “Yes, that week; to Paris and all over the place.” She instantly fell into a sort of melancholy. It was.aasy to be seen that she did ..not want to talk about her past and'yetthnt it fascinated her.

“Just think of it!” be exclaimed. **l never beard a word about you until I heard you slngthe other night.” The actress laughed and told him that he had made up for lost time, and that he was a regular “sitter" new at the Gaiety. said, “He- took me' every night to see you dance until I balked, Miss Lane.” “Still, it’s a perfectly great show, Mr. Ruggles, don’t you think so? 1 like it better than any part I ever had. I am interested about it for the sake of the man who wrote It, too. It's his first opera; he’s an invalid and has a wife and five kids to look after.” And Ruggles replied, “Oh, gracious! I feel better -than ever, having gone ten times, although I wasn’t very sore about it before! Ain’t you going to eat anything?” She only picked at her food, drinking what they poured in her glass, and every time she spoke to Dan a look of charming kindness crossed her face, an expression at good fellowship which Raggles noted with interest

"I wish you could have seen this same author today at the rehearsal of the play,” Letty Lane went on. "He’s too ill to walk and they had to carry him in a chair. We all went round to his apartments after the theater. He lives in three rooms with his whole family and he’s had so many debts and so much trouble and such a poor contract that he hasn’t made much /‘Vll♦ r\f 44 Q 1 Qwy ** T e*. ywydll vui vi -ivieumcutty, uut i guebs iie wixt but of this new piece. He hugged and kissed me until I thought he would break my neck.” London had gone mad over Letty Lane, whose traits and contour were the admiration of the world at large and well-known even to the newsboys, and whose likeness was nearly as familiar as that of the Madonnas of old. Her face was oval and perfectly formed, with the reddest of mouths—the most delicious and softest of mouths—the fine ot her brows dear and straight, and her gray eyes large and as innocent and appealing as a child's; under their long lashes they opened up like flowers, it was said that no man could withstand their appeal; that she had but to look to make a man her slave; and as more than once she turned to Dan, smiling and gracious, Ruggles watched her, mutely thinking sf what he had heard this day, for after her letter came accepting their invitation he had taken pains to find out tae fbings he wanted to know. • It had hot been . difficult. As her face and form were

public, on every post-card and in every photographer's shop, so the actress’ reputation was the property of the public. As Auggles repeated these things to -himself, he watched her beside the son of his old frienjl,.„Thftyjgerejtalk-. Ing—rather she was—and behind the orchids and the ferns her voice as sweet and enthralling. Ruggles tried to appreciate his bill of fare while the two appreciated each other. It was strange to Dan to have her so near and so approachable. His sights of her oft the stage had been so slight and fleeting. On the boards she had seemed to be an unreal creation made for the public alone. Her dress, cut fearlessly low, displayed her lovely young bosom —soft, bloomy, white as a shell —and her head and ears were as delicate as the petals of a white rose. Low In the nape of her neck, her golden hair lay lightly, and from its soft masses fragrance came to him. Ruggles could hear her say: “Roach came to the house and told my people tttat I had a fortune in my voice. 1 was living wkh my uncle and my step-aunt and working in the store. And that same day your father sent down a check for five hundred dollars. He said it was ‘for the little girl with the sweet voice,’ and it gives me a lot of pleasure to think that J began my lessons on that money.” The son of old Dan Blair said earnestly: “I’m darned glad you did—l’m darned glad you did!” Letty Lane nodded. “So am I. But,” with some sharpness, “I don’t see why you speak that way. I’ve earned my way. I made a fortune for Roach all right.” “You mean the man you married?” “Married—goodness gracious, what made you think that?” She threw back her pretty head and laughed—a

laugh with the least possible merriment in it. “Oh, Heavens, marry old Job Roach! So they say that, do they? I never heard that I hear a lot, but 1 never heard that fairy tale.” She put her hands to her cheeks, which had grdwn crimson. “That’s not true!” Dan swore at himself for his tactless stupidity. Ruggles had heard both sides. She was adored by the poor, and, as far as rumor knew, she spent thousands on the London paupers, and the Westerner, who had never been given to reveling in scandals and to whom there was something wicked in spea. ing ill of a woman, no matter whom she might be, listened with embarrassment to tales he had been told In answer to his other questions; and turned with relief to the stories of Letty Lane’s charity, and to the stories of her popularity and her success. They were more agreeable, but rest, and now as he looked at her face across the bouquet of orchids and ferns, it_was with a sinking of heart, a great pity for her, and still a decided enmity. He disapproved of her down to the ground. He didn’t let himself think how he felt, but it was for the boy. Ruggles was not a man of the world in any sense; he was simple and Puritan in bls judgments, and his gentle nature and his big heart kept him from Pharisaical and strenuous measures. He had been led In what he was doing tonight by a diplomacy and a common sense that few men east of the Mississippi would have thought out under the circumstances. “Tell Mr. Ruggles," he heard Dan say to her, “tell him—tell him!” And she answered: “I was telling Mr. Blair that, as he is so frightfully rich, I want him to give me some money.” Ruggles gasped, but answered quieter: 7 ' /' . ; “Weil, he’s a great giver, Miss Lane.” \

“I guess he is if he’s like his fa ther!” she returned. “I am trying tx get a lot, though, out of him, and when you asked me to dine tonight ) said to myself, ‘l’ll accept, for it wil be a good time to ask Mr. Blair tc help , me out in what. I . want to do.’' At Ruggles’ face she smiled sweetlj and said graciously: “Oh, don’t think I wouldn’t have come anyway. But I’m awfully tired these days, and going out to supper is just one thing too much to do! 1 want Mr. Blair,” she said; turning to Ruggles as if she knew a word from him would make the thing go through, "to help me build a rest home down on the English coast, for girls who get discouraged in their art When I think of the luck I have had and how these things have been from the beginning, and how money has just poured in, why,” she said ardently, “it just makes my heart ache to think oi the girls who try and fail, who go on for a little while and halve to give up. You can’t tell” —she nodded to Ruggles, as though she were herself a matron of forty—“you can not tell what their temptations are or what comes up to make them go to pieces.” Ruggles listened with interest “I haven’t thought it all out yet, but so many come to me tired out and discouraged, and I think a nice home taken care of by a good creature like my Higgins, let us say, would be a perfect blessing to them. They could go there and rest and study and just think, and perhaps,” she said slowly, as though while she spoke phe saw a vision of a tired, self, for whom there had been no rest home and no place of retreat, “perhaps a lot of them would pull through in a different way. Now tqday”—she broke her meditative tone short —“I got a letter from a hospital where a poor thing that

used to sing with me in New York was dying with consumption—all gone to pieces and discouraged, and there is where your primroses went to—” she nodded to Dan. “Higgins took them. You don’t mind?” And Blair, with a warmth in his voice, touched by her pity more than by her charity, said: “Why, they grew for you, Miss Lane; I don’t care wnat you do with them.” Letty Lane sank her head on her hands, her elbows leaned on the table. She seemed suddenly to have lost interest even in her topic. She looked around the room indifferently. The orchestra was softly playing “The Dove Song” from “Mandalay,” and very softly under her breath the star hummed it, her eyes vaguely fixed on some unknown scene. To Dan and to Ruggles she had grown strange. The music, her brilliancy, her sudden indifference, put her out of their commonplace reach. Ruggles to himself thought with relief: “She doesn’t care one rap for the boy anyway, thank God. She's got other fish to land.”

And Dan Blair thought: “It’s my infernal money again.” But he was generous at heart and glad to be of service to her, and was perfectly willing to be “touched” for her poor. Then two or three men came up and joined them. She greeted thpm indolently, bestowing a word or look on this one or on that; all fire and light seemed to have gone out of her, and Dan said: “You are tired. I guess I had better take you home.” (TO BE CONTINUED.)

“He Took Me Every Night to See You Dance Until I Balked, Miss Lane."