Richmond Palladium (Daily), Volume 33, Number 365, 7 November 1908 — Page 6

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THE

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BY HARRISON CLARK,.

Copyright 100 by Thomai H. McKee. AH!" cried Wilberton, sitting up stralgnt in his chair on the year-round resort hotel veranda. "Her is where Dull Monotony packs his things and hikes from the seaside." "1 should like to know why," commented Mrs. Wilberton skeptically. "1 am Bure nothing has occurred " Well, sometning will occur very shortly," her husband assured her. "Why," he exclaimed, things simply cannot be quiescent with a woman as pretty as that in their midst." He nodded. Mrs. w 11 berton. letting her gaze follow the direction of the nod, saw a young woman following the valise-encumbered porter toward the hotel entrance. She was a tall young woman, and slender, and her tan travelling gown was unquestionably In the latest style. By the hand she held a very small boy who was having great trouble with a very large straw bat. "Your taste in women is constantly changing," Mrs. Wilberton averred In a tone which plainly conveyed her contempt for such inconsistency. Mrs. Wilberton was fat and she was not tall, and her eyes were not gray. "Since when " "Oh, I always liked hhem tall and slender!" "This one is positively thin!" "And with dark hair and big gray eyes!" "One can never be sure about hair." "And clear, clean complexion, free o drug store blush " "It Is certainly absurd to regard that complexion

DULL CARE RETREATS FROM A WOMAN AS PRETTY AS THAT." as ral, or pretty, or even artistically done. And anyhow It will not last two days In this sun and sea breeze." 'She walks well, a sort of queenly gait " "Very carefully studied from some second-rate actress, I dare say not al all natural, and decidedly er indolent" "She doesn't seem to be very enthusiastic," agreed Wilberton. "Probably some stenographer or dressmaker taking a vacation on her year's savings," commented Mrs. Wilberton, with an air of dismissing the subject. "No one seems to recognize her, and there are nice people here from everywhere. She is registering. It would seem, as you are so greatly interested In her, you would see who she is, or at least th name she registers, and where she is Irom," she added reprovingly. "Oh, so 1 might! Hadn't occurred to me." Wilberton arose deliberately and sauntered Into the office. The new arrival was just leaving lor her room, still -under the porter's guidance and still folding by the hand the little boy with the big hat. "Who is she, Julius?"-he asked of the hotel clerk. , "The laty who Just registered? The one wit the little poyT Just went out? In the cottage No. 43? The tall one wit' the black hair yes?" Wilberton took possession of the register and Tead the name, Helen Alvyne Brown, St. Louis. "Is she 'Miss' or 'Mrs.' wondered Wilberton. "W'y, she's got a little poy!" declared Julius. .Without enthusiasm he returned to his wife. "Men do' And out so little," complained that lady when he had reported. "Wfcy on earth respectable people cannot go to a hotel without being brought into contact with such persons " Wilberton, recognizing this as the beginning of a eermonistlc disquisition which might lead into unpleasant paths, applied his usual preventive. "Oh, 1 was about to forget my appointment to meet Stacy at the clubhouse for a game or billiards berore luncheon, if you will be very careful," he called as he was leaving, "the new arrival may not contaminate you before 1 return." Twenty-four hours later the Wllbertons were again in their chairs on the hotel veranda, watering the morning train arrivals. "On, isn't that the handsomest man!" exclaimed Mrs. Wilberton, as a six-footer built like a lumber cutter and carrying himself with the swing of a college athlete and the air of a colonel on . campaign, crunched his way behind the porter over the it

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crushed-shell walk. "1 don't think he is Adonis come to the seaside, so far as face is concerned," commented Wilberton. "His features are rather heavy and that jaw belongs to a prize fighter. But Lord, I should like to own those shoulders! I'd have something decent to eat, or I'd do things to that cook. He is certainly a dandy!" Mrs. Wilberton gave a little Bniff of annoyance. "I sometimes believe you would not care if I eloped " Wfly is A J ax Hercules an old flame?" asked Wilberton. "Certainly not!" was the positive reply, accompanied by the flirt of a fan. "And at any rate I am sure Chat is not his name. 1 wish you would be more careful about' holding your shoulders up! if you had taken my advice you would be as flnelooking as that man." "Why I do believe that man has already registered!" said Mrs. Wilberton. Men do things so precipitately. 1 am willing to wager that 'he did not ask a word about tbe rates or the hours for meals, or whether his room had hot and cold water " "Or whether the chambermaid had a family, or whether tight sleeves would be worn in 1999," Wilberton interrupted. "1 shouldn't be surprised if he had his trunk checks in his hand and didn't have to block tne line while he searched for them at the bottom of an alligator-skin suit case." "Men have pockets," Mrs. Wilberton began with dignity. "Women are the architects of their own dress- '' retorted Wilberton. And he rose and went to' the register. "It's Brown!" he announced upon Ills return. "William J. Brown. How fortunate it is not Jones or Smith!" "The husband of Mrs. Brown! Perhaps he Is Mr. Brown!" "No, I think -he is 'Colonel' Brown. He registers from St. Louis ,and that is in the colonel belt." "Why that's where she's from." "I wonder how they left the seven thousand other Browns of St. Louis!" "I was sure there was a mystery about that woman as soon as 1 laid eyes on her." It Ib a "mystery where she keeps herself. She hasn't been seen out of her room. She hasn't been In the water, and she wasn't in the parlor or on the veranda last night, and Miflin says she wasn't at breakfast ' "Jeremiah Wilberton, I shouldthlnk a man of your age and responsibilities " "Oh, that's all right. Charley Herpel was giving me the details, and he hasn't either age or responsibilities." "Well, you seem to have remembered " "Just that Instant! remembered that Stacy was waiting for me to play billiards " And he sauntered away. "No, he Isn't her husband," said Wilberton confided as they entered the dining room for dinner. "I know he isn't, for he has a room in the annex, w hile she is in the cottage. She turned to her soup silently. Wilberton dallied with a slice of tomato. Suddenly a shriek rang out. "Goodness me!" cried Mrs. Wilberton. starting nervously. "Those children!" as the shriek was repeated. "Why on earth they are permitted in the dining room, and why on earth mothers haven't any more sense and consideration " "She didn't bring her boy," said Wilberton, pleased. "I daresay," Mrs. Wilberton began coldly, after a pause, "she is one of those intellectual persons who regard children as incumbrances and has the poor little thing locked in a room this very minute simply starving Why, isn't that Mr. Brown?" she Interupted herself excited as the arrival of the morning walked thoughtfully down the dining room. "It is! And look! he is going straight toward her table! I knew they must be acquainted! "I'll bet his chest measurement is one hundred," declared Wilberton under his breath, as Brown sat down. "I shall certainly Incite him against the cook." "See!" whispered 'his wife. "She has turned pale. And he doesn't look in her direction! I wonder what on earth!" "His appetite's all light," declared Wilberton. "I hope he'll get Indigestion so that he will be in proper mood for the cook." "Oh!" gasped Mrs. Wilberton on the veranda some two hours after dinner. There was a chorus of similar gasps from the other women Helen Alvyne Brown was entering the parlor. She was dazzlingly beautiful, her dark hair piled high, rose in it, a cloud-gray princess gown perfectly fitting her long, exquisitely rounded body, and not a jewel save the fiery opal blazing in one ring on her right hand.. There was a slight flush in her cheek and she was smiling and talking vivaciously with, the enchanted Herpel who was leading her to the piano. There was a complete cessation for a moment of feminine chatter and a positive wave of masculine "whews" as she touched the keys. She smiled up at Herpel and laughed: "What shall it be?" And without waiting for his stammering reply began the Jewel Song. Her voice rippled gloriously through the parlor and the hotel corridors, and along the veranda out into the sweet moonlight. "Lord!" said Wilberton. as the last note died softly away. His wife was resuming the comment which he had silenced four times in the course of the song. He arose abruptly. "I want a cigar," he said. "All abVHUtiim the hum of enthusiastic praise of the tngVanl the song, praise tainted here and there .wlhl.hTy and rendered offensive in many ' " X w

places by the absurdities of Ignorance. He made his way to the hotel desk, which was also the cigar stand. Julius was In a state of fearsome perturbation, and queer foreign exclamations were exploding from his lips. "I shall invite him to a challenge," he detonated as Wilberton came up. "Let me have a cigar," begged Wilberton. "He called me a cbackass in my face," protested Julius. "A cigar, please," Wilberton repeated. "Who Is this zoological expert?" "Who? W'y, that Prown that pig proat " and he sputtered a volley of presumptively adequate expletives. "Brown? What was the occasion for his succinct diagnosis?'" "W'y he come up to the tesk, ant ask for a cigar yes? Ant the lady is singink, ant while I reach for the cigar I say, 'The lady sing nice yes?' Ant he vot you say groont! oonh! so! 'She haf a goot coice better as many vot I 'hear In Berlin 1 say. Ant still more he groont oouh! 'You know t'e laty?' I say. I see you start to sit by t'e same taple wlf her Ant right in my face he say, 'You Chackass!' and go stomp! stomp! out from the office!" "And so he called you a damned jackass!" mused Wilberton. "No," Julius corrected him hastily "not t'e tarn he dit not say tam!" Mrs Wilberton was absorbed In talk about the cloud-gray princess with two other women when Wilberton returned to the veranda; and as the Mystery was singing again a present.-day ballad he strolled away, listening and smoking. Presently he came to a seat under the salt cedars, and dropped into it, unconsciously listening to the voice. It was several minutes before he knew that a man was in the next seat, likewise smoking. The discovery did not interest him; for the Mystery had burst into a rippling, rollicking thing, which he recognized as belonging to the "Chimes of Normandy," or "Bohemian Girl," or the "Sultan of Zulu," or something its origin being of infinitesimal importance, and the thing worth while being the delicious sweetness of its present rendering. And he listened, and smoked, and looked out over the moonlit bay. "Something like a sigh came from the next seat as the song ended, and the glowing cigar was lowered and its ash flipped away. Wilberton left moved by compassion. "That's a 'beautiful voice," he said; and he was surprised at the softness of his words as though the song were not ended and he did not wish to interrupt it. "The most beautiful I have heard since ever," said the Next Seat. "A Miss Brown of St. " began Wilberton. "Yes, I know." Interrupted the Next Seat. "Mrs. Brown." "Oh! Mrs.," agreed Wilberton. "She's beautiful. Widow?" -ii-ji "Widow yes," he answered. And then: "I knew her husband name the same related, you know. Knew them both before they were married.

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SHE WAS A TALL YOUNG WOMAN. AND SLENDER.

She was a beautiful girl and has grown more beautiful every year. Used to like me pretty well; and I well, you can guess about me. But her husband was a high-kicking, hard-mouthed, meannatured brute, and she blamed me for it. So. of course When a woman holds a man responsible for her husband's meannesses, he might as well plead guilty and accept banishment. There was a boy " "Some day, Jeremiah Wilberton, you will be sensible enough to pay attention to my intuitions," Mrs. Wilberton was declaring with much satisfaction. They were on the veranda and Wilberton had Just been giving her an account of "his conversation with Brown. Consideration for his own sellish desire to go to sleep had caused him to withhold the account the night before. "I knew the

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minute I saw her," Mrs. Wilberton continued, "that there was something mysteri6us about that woman. How on earth men can be so completely deluued by such scheming creatures " "Why, what's she been scheming?" asked Wilberton.

"I am sure she simply drove poor Mr. Brown her husband. I mean to his grave," Mrs. Wilberton continued complacently. "And Mr. Brown this Mr. Brown has such a sad look In his eyes that I am sure he is suffering constantlythough why he hasn't found her out before now I certainly can't understand. But that is the way with men. They are perfectly devoted to women who are heart, less, and make martyrs of women who are constant. For she is heartless, Jeremiah Wilberton. You saw how secluded she kept herself before he came, as though she were entirely too good for the rest of us some princess of the blood " "She certainly can give most princesses forty pounds and romp under che wiie an easy winner in the Good Looks stake " . Mrs. Wilberton interrupted him with a sniff of impatience and continued: "But as soon as he came and after her disgraceful rudeness to him ia the dining room " "I didn't see any rudeness unless it has become rude to blush when a man turns away from a table!" "Say come I've got to see Stacey and settle with him for that beating he gave me yesterday," said Wilberton, beginning a retreat. "That woman spends a fortune on clothes," declared Mrs. Wilberton. She and Wilberton were at the table and Mrs. Brown followed by three-score of feminine eyes and four men, was sweeping into the dining room "That gown is Imported beyond , any doubt. Paquin, I am sure; and he charges outrageously." "Maybe she got It at a Thursday bargain," said Wilberton. ."She ertainly looks well in blue." "It is simply disgraceful the way the men bang around her," declared Mrs. Wilberton. "The married men are worse than the single ones. I never saw any woman at a respectable bathing resort act as she did this afternoon." "Try the prunes," urged Wilberton. "You can't think of other disgraceful things when you eat these prunes. I haven't seen Brown myself." Mrs. Wilberton's indignation was of the silent sort for the rest of the. meal. Mrs. Wilberton was one of a party of matrons who were enjoying themselves at cards. All the men who were not playing court to Helen Alvyne Brown were in the hands of their wives. And there was nothing iert for Wilberton but to stroll away with his cigar to the salt cedars. There he could hear the golden voice and not hear the chatter. He stretched himself comfortably over two chairs and smoked, and looked out over the bay, and listened. Another cigar was glowing a short distance away, and he bad an idea that Brown was responsible for it; but Brown probably wanted to be alone, and Wilberton certainly did. So he smoked in solitude; and when his cigar was finished he continued to sit in solitude; and even when the voice of gold ceased Wilberton awoke with a start. There was the rustle of awoman's garments and a woman, alone dropped with a sigh into a seat a few feet away. The shadows were dark under the salt cedars; neither the glare of the electric lights from the hotel nor the glow of the moonlight filtered through the thick foliage. But out on the rippling bay a silvery path of light was laid, and the woman was clearly sllhoutted against this. . . . There couldn't be any doubt of it she was Alvyne - Brown; and Wilberton stared wonderingly and- went to making wild guesses as to why she had stolen away, and how she had managed to escape from her worshipful retinue. And while he was wondering and making guesses the dark head dropped and there was an outburst of woman's sobs passionate, miserable. And Instantly there came the crash of an overturned seat, and the man who had been behind the other cigar came looming through, the shadows. He stopped before the sobbing woman. "Helen!" he cried. His voice was tender and low. "Oh, why don't you leave me alone!" cried the woman. Her head was raised and her attitude was resentful perhaps defiant. "You know I don't want that I want to be left alone." 1 1 1 r w "Has anyone wounded you, Helen?" There was a queer, bard note in his voice. "No it is not your affair," she answered. "Whatever concerns you must always be my affair," he said. "Why do you pursue me?" she demanded. "Why did you come here?" . "I didn't know you were here," he answered; and then, with a trace of bitterness: "I believed the mistaken paragraph vich said you had "gone to Palm Beach. 1 tbouhf tbe length of the Gulf of Mexico was distance enough between us to please even yon." "You had no right to think what would please me." , "There are some rights which cannot be withdrawn or surrendered," he answered sadly. "And i i -i -- -- - ;

I have not molested you " "You have! You have driven me to pretend that 1 was enjoying myself, when I wanted to rest rest! For 1 am so tired!" The last word was a cry; and throwing her arms against tbe back of the seat she leaned her head upon them and wept hysterically. The man stood statuelike for a moment; then with a yearning cry he took a step forward, bent over, and caught tbe weeping woman In his arms. "Good Lord!" cried Wilberton voicelessly. The mental exclamation was not of surprise at the man's actions but for the sudden realization that h was

WITH A YEARNING CRY BROWN CAUGHT HER IN HIS ARMS, an eavesdropper. He got carefully to his feet and. stole away without disturbing a pebble. And he? did not look back! ( "Wake up, my dear," cried Wilberton at even o'clock the next morning as he burst Into his wife's bedroom. "I've been to a wedding," he cried, and began to hum the, Mendelssohn march very muchout of tune. Mrs. Wilberton assumed a sitting posture and, cried, Jeremiah!" with the same single and eyedefying motion. 1 "Turn turn tee turn, turn turn turn, hummed. Wilberton. "You bet! Best man gave brlda away- " "Who?" screamed Mrs. Wilberton. "And why:, didn't you take me?" . . "Guess both answers," said Wilberton. "Turn tee turn turn, tee tu-u-m, tu Woman, unhand: me!" For Mrs. Wilberton had him . by both; shoulders shaking him. "I'll scream!" she cried. "Do you think you can do any better than that?' he asked. "Hist!" he whispered, and tiptoed and listened in approved farce-comedy fashion. "It's the Browns!" Mrs. Wilberton collapsed to a seat upon the side of the bed. "What did she have on?" she asked, breathlessly. "Something green and yellow - "Jeremiah!" she shrieked. "Impossible! "I don't know; but it was pretty. And she wa more beautiful than ever ' "1 knew that woman would figure In a sensa-j tion! How did they happen to Invite you?" "Brown saw me on the beach (I went for a walk this morning) told me- asked me I was delighted.' He said they had made It all up last night too late then to find a preacher wanted to have It all over with before hotel woke up " "I always did say there was a mys " "Yes; I believe I heard you. Lady was readyso was the kid impressed automobile broke law. and robbed park of all Its blooms for bridal bou-j quet 'honk, honk to license clerk's house honk, honk to parsonage "If any man. ... let him ; forever after hold his peace I will 'Ten dollars please and " He yawned wearily. "Oh, there wasn't anything interesting!" "Did she wear a hat?" "Yes. That is, no yes no I don't knowj He had one; I held it for him. And say, her hus-j band hasn't been dead three years " -I knew " "No. Hasn't been dead at all.- , "Jeremiah WI1 " "Not dead yet divorced! And this Brown ! "Oh!" "He was the husband be told me about being tj blame for" '111 wager she was mostly to blame!" "That's what she says says she was a silly fool, J a vain child and they almost quarreled about itj In the anto "Well," I never!" "But It's all right now breakfast at eight.! Oh!" he cried, springing np; "where's my cane that heaviest one?" , "Of all things! What on earth " "I'm to order the breakfast of the cook, and I may need the moral support of a club." "Eight o'clock! Oh!" gasped Mrs. wnbertoo. "Why, I will have to rush my head off to be ready!" As Wilberton went out humming tbe wedding' march, he heard the noise of a frantic search for 5 breakfast apparel and the cry, "Do find that maid j and send her np mc9 at once! i - r-