Evening Republican, Volume 16, Number 141, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 June 1912 — The HYING MERCURY [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

The HYING MERCURY

By Eleanor M. Ingram

Author of “The Game and the Candle" Illustration! Bjr RJIY WALTERS

fOopyUfiit, m, ky SobMIaRIU 000 ■ S —— SYNOPSIS. The story opens on Long Island near New York city, where Miss Emily Ffrench, a relative of Ethan Ffrench, manufacturer of the celebrated "Mercury" automobile, loses her way. The car has stopped and her cousin, Dick Ffrench, is too muddled with drink to direct It aright. They meet another car which is run by a professional racer named Lastrange. The latter fixes up the Ffrench car and directs Miss Ffrench how to proceed homeward. Ethan Ffrench has disinherited his son, who has disappeared. He informs Emily plainly that he would like to have her marry Dick, who is a good-natured but irresponsible fellow. It appears that a partner of Ethan Ffrench wanting- an ex* pert to race with the "Mercury at auto events, has engaged Lestrange, and at the Ffrench factory Emily encounters the young man. CHAPTER 111,—(Continued). None of the group in the next room had noticed the movement of the shade, absorbed in one another; any sound being muffled by the throb of adjacent machinery. Bailey obeyed the request, and leaned back In his chair. ■ - ' “That’s Darling Lestrange,” he stated with satisfaction, “That’s his own design for an oiling system he’s busy with, and it’s a beauty. He’s entered f <Tr every big race coming this season, starting next week in Georgia, and meantime he oversees every department in every building as it never was done before. The man for me, he is.” Emily made an unenthusiastic sign of agreement. “I meant a very different man from Mr. Lestrange,” she replied, her dignity altogether Ffrench. ‘1 have no doubt that he is all you say, but I was thinking of another class. I meant —well, I meant a gentleman." “Oh, you meant a gentleman," replied Bailey, surveying her oddly. “I didn’t know, you see. No; I don’t know any one like that.’’ “Thank you. Then I will go. I—it does not matter." . She did not go, however, but remained leaning on the arm of her chair in troubled reverie, her long lashes lowered. Bailey sat as quietly, watching her and waiting. The murmur of voices came dully through the closed door, one, lighter and clearer in tone, most frequently rising above the roar pervading the whole building. It was not possible that Emily’s glimpse of Lestrange across the glass should identify him absolutely with the man she had seen once in the flickering lights and shadows on the Long Island road; but he was not of a type easily forgotten, and she had been awakened to a doubting recognition. Now, many little circumstances recurred to her; a strangeness in Dick’s manner when the new manager was alluded to, the fact that her-rescuer on that October night had been driving a racing car and had worn a racing costume; and lastly, when Bailey spoke of “Darlirte” Lestrange there had flashed across her mind the mechanician’s ridiculous answer to the request to aid her chauffeur in changing a tire: “I’ll do it for you, Darling.” And listening *to that dominant voice in the next room, she slowly grew crimson before a vision of herself in the middle of a country road, appealing to a stranger for succor, like the heroine of a melodramatic fiction. Decidedly she would never see Lestrange, never let him discover Miss Ffrench. "I will go,” she reiterated, rising impetuously. The glass-set door opened with unwarning abruptness. “I’ll see Mr. Bailey,” declared some one. “He’ll know." Helpless, Emily stood still, and straightway found herself looking di; rectly into Lestrange’s gray eyes as be halted on the threshold. It was Bailey who upheld the moment, all unconsciously. "Come in," he invited heartily. “Miss Ffrench, this is our manager, Mr. Lestrange; the man who’s going to double our sales this year." Emily moved, then straightened herself proudly, lifting her small head. Lestrange had recognized her, she felt; the call was to .courage, not flight. •' r “I think I have already met Mr. Lestrange,” she said composedly. “I am pleased to meet him again." “Met him!” cried Bailey. “Met him? Why-" Neither heeded him. A gleaming surprise and warmth lit Lestrange’s always brilliant face. "Thank you,” he answered her. “You are more than good to recall me. Miss Ffrench. I owe an apology for breaking in this way, but I fancied Mr. Bailey alone—and he spoils me.” "It Is nothing; I was about to go.” She turned to give Bailey her hand, ■piling involuntarily in her relief.

With a glance, an inflection, Lestrange had stripped their former meeting of its embarrassment and unconventionality, how, she neither analyzed nor cared. “Good morning,” said Bailey. "Shall I take you through, or —” But Lestrange was already holding open the door, with a bright unconcern asto bls workmanlike costume which impressed Emily pleasantly. She wondered if Dick would have home the situation as well, in the impossible event of his being found at work. - ■ ’■ ■ ’ ■ . ' The two walked together down an aisle of the huge, machinery-crowded room, the grimy men lifting their heads to gaze after Emily as she passed. Once Lestrange paused to speak to a man who sat, notebook and pencil in hand, beside another who manipulated under a grinding wheel a delicate aluminum casting. “Pardon," he apologized to Emily, who had lingered also. “Mathews would have let that go wrong in another moment. He,” his smile glanced out, “he is not a Rupert at changing his tires, so to speak, but just a good chauffeur.” —The gay and natural allusion delighted her. For the first time in her life Emily Ffrench laughed out In a genuine, mischievous sense of adventure. “Yes? I wonder you could separate yourself from that Rupert to come here; he was a most bewildering person,” she retorted. “Separate from Rupert?, Why, I would not think of racing a taxicab, as he would say, without Rupert beside me. He is here taking a postgraduate course in this type of car, in order to be up to his work when we go down to Georgia next week.” “Next week? You expect to win that race?” “No. We are running a stock car against some heavy foreign racing machines; the chance of winning is slight. But I hope to outrun any other American car on the course, if nothing goes wrong.” She looked up. “And if something does?” she wondered. He shrugged his shoulders. “Pray be careful of those moving belts behind you, Miss Ffrench. If something does —there is a chance in every game worth playing.” “A chance!” her feminine nerves recoiled from the Implied consequences. “But only a chance, surely. You were never In an accident, never were hurt?” Lestrange regarded her in surprise mingled with a dawning raillery infinitely Indulgent. “I had no accidents last season,” he guardedly responded. “I’ve been quite lucky. At least Rupert and I play our game unhampered; there will be no broken hearts If we are picked up from under our car some day.” They had reached the door while he spoke; as he put his hand on the

knob to open it, Emily saw a long zigzag scar running up the extended arm from wrist to elbow, a mute commentary on the conversation. In silence she passed out across the courtyard to where her red-wheeled cart waited. But when Lestrange had put her in and given her the reins, she held out her hand to him with more gravity. “I shall wish you good luck \for next week,” she said. Lestrange threw back his head, drawing a quick breath; here in the strong sunlight he showed even younger than she had thought him, young with a primitive intensity of just being alive.. “Thank you. I would like—if it were possible—to win this race.” “This one, especially?” “Yes, because it is the next step toward a purpose I have set myself, and which I shall accomplish if I live. Not that I will halt if this step fails, no, nor for a score of such failures, but I am anxious to go on and finish.” Up to Emily’s face rushed the answering color and fire to his; drawn by the bond of mutual earnestness, she leaned nearer. "You live to do something? So do I,\o do I! And every one else plays.” However Lestrange would have replied, he was checked by the crash of the courtyard gate. Abruptly recalled to herself, Emily turned, to see Dick Ffrench eonaing toward thdm. Remembering how the three had last met, the situation suggested strain. But to Emily’s astonishment the young men exchanged friendly nods, although Dick flushed pink. "Good morning, Lestrange,” he greeted. “I’ve just come up from the city, Emily, and there wasn’t any carriage at the station, so when one of the me you were .here I came over lo get a ride." *Tve been to see Mr. Bailey,” she responded. “Get in.”

• As Dick climbed in beside her, she bent her head to Lestrange; if she had regretted her impulsive confidence, again the clear sanity and calm of the gray eyes she encountered established self-content. When they were trotting down the road toward home, in the crisp air, Emily glanced at her cousin. “I did not know you and Mr. Lestrange were so well acquainted,” she remarked. "I see him now and then,"Dick answered uneasily. “He’s too busy to want me bothering arotmd him much. You —remembered him?” "Yes.” He absently took the whip trom Its socket, flecking the horse with it as he spoke. 2 "It was awfully square of you, Emily, not to mention that night to Uncle Ethan. It wasn’t like a girl, at all. I made an idiot of myself, and you’ve never said anything to me about it since. I never told you where Lestrange took me, because I didn’t like to talk of the thing. I’m really awfully fond of you, cousin.” “Yes, Dickie,” she said patiently. “Well, Lestrange rubbed it in. Oh, he didn’t say much. But he carried me down to where they were practicing for a road race. Such a jolly lot of fellows, like a bunch of kids; teasing and calling jokes back and forth at one another haff' the night until daybreak, everything raw’ and chilly. Busy, and their mechanics busy, and one after another swinging into his car and going off like a rocket. By the time Lestrange went off, I. was 'as much stirred up as anybody. When he made a record circuit at seventyseven miles an hour average, I was shouting over the rail like a good one. And then, while he was off again, a big blue car rolled In and its driver yelled that Lestrange had gone ove on the Eastbury turn, and to send around the ambulance. ILwaa-like a nightmare; I sat down on a stone and felt sick.” "He—” “He shook me up half an hour later, and stood laughing at me. ’Upset?’ he said. ‘No; we shed a tire and went off into a fieTd; buOtdidn’t hurt the machine, so we righted her and came in.’ He was limping and bruised and scratched, but he was laughing, while a crowd of people were trying to shake hands with him and say things. I felt —funny; as if I wasn’t much good. I never felt like that before. ‘This is only practice,’ he said, when I was about to go. ‘The race tomorrow will do better. We find It more exciting than cocktails.’ That was all, but I knew what he meant, all right. l I've been careful ever since. He won the race next day, too.” “Dick, didn’t It ever occur to you that you as well as Mr. Lestrange might do real things?” she asked, after a moment. He turned his round, good-humored face to her in boundless amazement. “I? I race cars and break my neck and call it fun, like Lestrange? You’re laughing at me, Emily." “No, no,” in spite of herself the picture evoked brought her smile. “Not like that. But you might be Inter-ested-In the factory. You might learn from Mr. Bailey and take charge of the business with Uncle Ethan. It would please uncle, how it would please him, if you did!” Dick stirred unhappily. “It would take a lot of grind,” he objected. “I haven*t the head for it, really. I’m not such an awfully bad lot, but I hate work. Let’s not be serious, cousin. How pretty the frosty wind makes you look!” Emily tightened the reins with a brief sigh of resignation. “Never mind, Dickie. I —uncle will find a substitute. Things must go on somehow, I suppose, even if we do not like the way.” ' But the way loomed distasteful that morning as never before. (TO BE CONTINUED.)

“I See Him Now and Then.”