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About Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922 | View Entire Issue (Oct. 30, 1921)
9 J 1 5f If -J' THE BEE: OMAHA. SUNDAY, OCTOBER 30. 1921. 3 M INDIAN SUMMER By Albert Paysan Terhune I In Which a Celebrity Makes a Journey to the Fabled Fountain of Youth. TUB county clerk la Dlrck Moylan' bom town had (1114 In a form slip thtt bore a humiliating Jlkenes to a kennel club's pedlgre bUuik. TMi at th time of Dlrck' birth. And, according to tha certificate. Dlrck wm now Juat forty year old. II looked It neither mora nor lee. If looked ilk a man who had llvod forty year, but who had lived well and more or lea sanely and had accomplished something. Cut birth certificate and- human outline and facial mask do not tak Into account tha actual youth or ag of a man th youth or at that I of tha heart. That wa why. In pit of dry ststlstlcs, Dlrck Moylan' birth eer tlflcat wa a lie. j For Dlrck wa young. Inordinately young. J Th county clerk could not have been x- ported to know that, Dlrrk, at forty, would ' really be in th early twenties. For Dlrck him aelf did not know It until nearly a month after the fortieth mllealon wa passed. Tou aeo, for a matter of a aror of year h had been working too hard'to notice whether he wa old or young. Painter are auppoaed to lead lasy and dreamful Uvea, and to wake aom day to fame and wealth. In real Ufa auch paint ess Dlrck Moylan and th rent share th lot of writer or coal heaver or musician or cob bler. In other word, If they toll day and night at th level beat and hardeat that la In them they may or may not aom day reach a aummlt whose conquest usually mean that they must thereafter keep on working harder than ever. Those of th craft who do not work Ilk that never arrive anywhere, and find their sol con solation In branding the successful hustlers as "lucky stiffs." i 'By tha time he wa forty Dlrck noticed, to ,Jfta own mild surprise, that people were lioniz ing him. Also that hs could hav lost five thou sand dollars much more comfortably than a few year earlier, he could hav spared a single ten dollar bill. This sort of thing was the goal toward which he had climbed with ardent long ing, In the early grinding years of struggle. Now that he had attained It th climb had been so gradual ho could not even make himself realize he wa at th top. He tried to say something of this, In a pus- zllng and halting fashion, to Malda Lnyne. But, even to her, he felt he was not making himself clear. And the fact of her understanding what he was driving at did not prove he had ex v pressed himself well It proved only what he had known for five years that Malda still had that queer gift of reading htm and of under standing his most perplexed and tumbled thoughts before he had half voiced them. He and Malda saw a good bit of each other. They had been pals from the first. It was pleas ant and calming to Dirck to drop In at her rooms on his way home from the studio in the winter dusk or to run out for the week-end to her shabbily sweet little summer bungalow at Paignton, In the North Jersey hills. There wa something Infinitely restful about Maldv something stimulating, too, though never stimulating when a tired man wanted ir imu umn. mcKnumea nor im woman w no Understands." And he let it go at that I. She wa In the dawn of the thirties. She had been married, at twenty, to a man of fifty whom she did not' love. An hour after the ceremony she and her grizzled bridegroom had - started west on a wedding trip. An hour later the train had been derailed. A stove-ln car roof made the bride a widow before ever she was really a wife. '' The obliging car roof had also made her heir to one-third of the Intestate victim's estate. In other; words, to some seven . thousand dollars a year. , Malda had not pretended to mourn her !'Jtspouse. Tet, at first from deference to hi ,f memory and later from choice, she had lived In easy semi-seclusion. One or two little dinner a winter, a tea or so, and perhaps a few Infor mal week-end parties at her bungalow these comprised Malda Layne's efforts at entertaining. And she accepted even fewer Invitations than, she gave. Once or more a year she consented to aot as hostess and chaperon at Dlrck Moylan' rambling country home, a mile or so from her ' Paignton bungalow, or to serve In the same gracious capacity at a dinner or tea In his town studio. .' .. '. It was one evening Just after Malda had come to her bungalow for the summer that Dlrck broke his own rule of rustic retirement by going to a leap year dance at the Paignton Country club. , Malda was thene, too. But Dirck saw little of her. It was almost his first public appearance at any function In. the neigh borhood. And the summer colony hailed his advent as something of a triumph. His fame was bright of late. And he had a reputation for not caring about society. There- fore, that night he was greeted with open arms and wa made much of generally. That was the evening he met Thetis Varick. Thetis was tall and flamelike and altogether beautiful beneath her rich tan of outdoor sum mer life. She was slenderly athletic, too, and , yet with a grace and a richness that seemed to lift her from the class of stalwartly healthy out door girls around her. She appealed, on the In stant, to Dirck's artistlo sense. And he caught himself studying her as carefully as though he was wielding brush and mahlstlck. - It was not hard for him to make this study and to make it at close quarters. For Thetis was openly Interested in nun, ana sne was more. An utter hero woroshlp smoldered In her warm young eyes. In less than five minutes after they met he knew she had put him on a pedes- tend an Ignorant Interest she did not feel. She was as conversant with his work as was any critic She showed a perfect familiarity with it and an almost awed admiration that must have gone to th very heart of any. normal man. Thetis was not only an art student, but an art lover. Moylan had been her ideal And now, face to face, she had met him. - She did not gush. She did not chant fulsome praises. But she worshiped. She worshiped intelligently and unashamed. This open adola try of the glowingly lovely girl stirred Dlrck. It filled him with a mass of queer emotions that he had thought outgrown a score of year ago. This was Moylan's first inkling that he wa .still young. . With a charming shamelessness Thetis took advantage of the leap year phase of th coun try club affair by claiming Dirck for dance after dance. 'The evening was hot After ono two dances the two sat out for the best part of an hour. Thetis Snubbed unmercifully such callow youths as dared invade the moonlit club balcony In quest of her. It was after one of these interruption that JJIrck came guiltily out of the monstrous pleas ant trance bred of blended moonshine and ycluth and frank hero worship. " "What a selfish chap I am!" he exclaimed In belated remorse. "Hero it's th big dance of th season, and everybody wants to dance with you, and you're looking Ilk Botticelli' 'Spring,' and I keep you out here talking with a prosy old codger like myself! I'm' robbing you of all the fun and " "No!" she broke In, her young vole all 1 . . V. a VtoA Vi o want tiA , r f m rl lad. 1 , 1 HQ ujv v.. a mm -uu. . u. evening I over had. It' something to dream of always! And you're not to speak of yourself as old.' either! "Oldr Why. you're you're . b ageless, master. 'You're eternal Did you say I r those absurd thing because Dicky Verl-der came blundering out her Just now 7 He a only a boy. I loath boy. Tell me more about Gauguin. Was it before or after he went to the Marquesas that you met him? Had he " "O nonsense ! cried Dirck, cutting a truly acrobatic pigeon wing and doing a valorous double shuffle at be spoke. "It was before." said Dirck. "Two years be fore. He never came back from there. Non of us saw him again." He spoke mechanically, scarce noting his own words. For she had called him "master," In the quaint old world fashion of his Rue de Dragon days. She had said he was ageless, eternal.. And there was stark, pure adoration In her tones. The moonlight gave her great dark eyes an expression that daxed the man. Time stood still. He felt life and age and experience falling away from him, leaving him gloriously young. Thus it was that Malda Layne had no word with her old friend that evening until they chanced to meet in the doorway going home. Malda caught her breath a very little at the . look In Moylan's lean face. He was all but transfigured. There was an aura of triumphant youth about his very step. When she reached her bungalow Malda gazed long and a shade sadly at her own re flection in the glass. The mirror gave back the Image of a sweet faced and tender eyed woman more than commonly biassed with a beauty that seemed bred of the soul rather than of the fea tures. But It was the face of a woman unde niably of a woman, not of a girL And Malda found herself visualizing the flamelike person ality and the resplendent youth of Thetis Varick. ' As for Thetis herself, she went home and to , bed strangely silent and star eyed. ' In the se curity of her ewn white and pink room she took out from over her heart a crumpled little , aster that had tumbled out of Dirck's lapel but tonhole aa they had sat talking. She lifted it with youthful veneration to her lifts., Then' gently she locked it way in the chased gold box that held her dearest treasures. Before leaving the dance she had made Moy lan promise to come to the Varick place for tea the next afternoon. . Dirck, already half ashamed of the illogical impulse that drew him on, kept the appointment He came to tea. And . he stayed for dinner.; And he went canoeing on the river with the blissfully happy Thetis afterward. It was nearly eleven o'clock when he started for-home.. As he passed Malda Layne's bungalow on his way to his own house he saw a glint of white amid the vines on the moonwashed little veranda.' Dirck hesitated, then turned in at the gate. "It's abomlnally late," he said. "But do you mind if I stop for just a minute or two? Unless you're sleepy or " "I'm not sleepy," answered Malda, coming forward to greet him. "The evening is too beau tiful to waste in drowsing. Come in." He laughed uneasily. "The moonlight must have gotten into the blood of both of us," he commented. "Dp her in the country I don't believe either you or I stay awake often after ten o'clock. I we- . That' part of what I was thinking about as I cam along just now. And somehow I wanted to talk It over with you. You're sure you're not sleepy t . v "Not a bit." she reassured him. "Talk away. You were thinking about our not being awake, usually, after ten o'clock? What is ?" - "No, not that exactly. - But what It implies. Here's the Idea, as nearly as I can put it into words: I've been plugging away, year after year, in the same old rut, till I forgot there was any kind, of life except my own kind. I've been thinking of myself as elderly well, middle aged, anyhow and sedate and all that and fit for nothing but to grind out my day's work and to rest up in summer 'by going to bed at nine. That sort of thing makes a man old. And I'm not old!" He spoke almost defiantly, as If fearing ridi cule or contradiction. He got neither from th sympathetic woman on the veranda step beside him. Instead Maida said soothingly: "No, you'r not old, Dlrck. I never think of you as old. Nobody could." "Wen, middle aged then!" he chailanged. "And now I find I'm not even that I'm young, Maida! You can laugh at m If you want to. I'm young." x ' Again he paused. In defiance. But there wa no laugh or other sign of mocking dissent from the calm eyed woman beside him. H took up th recital. "I'm young, I tell you! A man Is as old as he thinks he Is. I've been a Methuselah from the time I was 20. And for some divine reason my youth has come back to me. I'd be a fool to throw it away, wouldn't I?" This time there was more of appeal than challenge in his words. And an innate wlst fulness in them touched some mother chord in Maida's heart "Yes, indeed!" she made . haste to , answer. "It would be the most foolish thing In the world to throw away such a gift. And Isn't it wonderful that it's come to you when you have the money and the leisure to enjoy it? So many people have to spend their first youth in working, and when they are able at last to en Joy youth they've forgotten how. Or else the world has hammered all the youth out of them. You're lucky, Dlrck, lucky and wise!" With impulsive gratitude at her swift com prehension and sympathy, Moylan caught her cool white hand In his eager grasp. There was something boyish and irresponsible In the ges ture. Assuredly there was nothing in it to ac count for the woman's drawing away her own hand in reproving haste, as she did. . . "I've been so busy and so blind," he ram bled on, too Interested in his thenle to note her action, "that I've never, remembered till now to be young. I've associated with, middle aged peopled and so I've thought middle aged thoughts. In a few years more I'd have been fit for the chimney corner and a bowl of gruel. The way to be young," he continued oracularly, "the way to be young and to think young thought and to get the real Joy out of life, Is to sur round one's self with young people and to live and laugh and Jabber as they do. You've no Idea how many years it rolls oft of one shoul ders. And that brings me to the point I was coming over tomorrow to ask you about it Do you happen to know Thetis Varick? Tall, slender, glorious looking kid, with " "Yes, I've met her," said Malda evenly a she fought an annoying twinge at her heart' "And she's all you say, Dlrck. A beautiful girl. She " ..' . "She's only 19," explained Moylan. "But she's as clever and has as much personality and poise and all that as any woman of the. world. I've been dining there tonight And a gorgeous Idea came to me. I suggested it to her, and - she's delighted with it I'm going to give a little week-end house party Saturday after next. Not of my friends, but hers. . 'The crowd,' as - she calls them. Eight young people, all In their late teens or early twenties. It'll be open house. And we'll all be young together. Not a stodgy middle aged house party, mind you, but chock full of youth. . There'll be enormous boxes of candy in every room. I'll have the piano tuned and we'll all get around It and sing the dandy old kid songs. You know 'Boola-Boola' and 'Upidee' and The Bulldog on the Bank' and The Little Old Red Shawl My Mother Wore,' and Jill the rest We'll have rousing old chor uses, I. can tell you! And we'll have an old fashioned straw ride, too, and " "Splendid!" she applauded. v And the man was too unversed in the ways of mother and child to recognize in her sweet voice the tone In which a loving parent might applaud some wild dreams of her hopelessly de fective youngster. , . "And here' the favor I wanted to ask you," he .want on, vastly encouraged by her approval. "Won't you come over and chaperon them? Please do, Maida. It'll be a tremendous favor, to me. And besides, we'll both be young again ' in their youth. W.e'll all be kid together. We'll have a royally good time, the whole kid lot of us. Say you'll come, Maida!" Why,' yes, Dirck," she made answer, steadying a catch in her voice. "Of course, I'll come. I'll I'll be glad to." "Malda, you're a brick!" he exclaimed, laughing with the glad excitement of a boy. "Lord, but I feel twenty years old!" For the next ten days the Moylan home stead was In a state of turmoil. The big old house was freshened and refurbished. The an cient piano was tuned. The rare bits of art and antiquity which Dlrck had taken a true con noisseur's pride in collecting all were exam ined carefully and placed to best advantage in the low ceiled first floor rooms. Tho tennis courts were rolled afresh until one might have played billiard on them. The grounds were worked over from dawn to dark. From the city came boxes and hampers and parcels. Every good thing to eat that Dirck's early memories could supply was commandeered from town. ' The housekeeper was sent to hire extra servants for the occasion. Music stores were ransacked for college song books and the like. And at every turn Malda Layne was help ing along the great preparations. -'' Dlrck was In an uncontrolled fever of Joyous excitement He scarcely recognized himself In this new frame of mind. And Maida knew him not at all In It But whereas his abounding yo'uthf ulness was as strong wine of rapture to his brain, it had an unaccountably saddening effect on Malda, Scarcely a day passed that Dlrck, on some pretext or other, did not find himself at Thetis' home. The girl's frank worship continued to amaze and thrill him. It went to his head. And It made him a boy again. He took himself to task for all thls. And to the sanely cautious half of his cosmos he made blithe answer: . "It's true, as you say, that she's nineteen and I'm forty. But what of that? There Isn't a wrinkle in my face. I dance better than any of the young fellows in her crowd. She says so herself. I'm strong and active, and with her to keep me young I ought not to begin growing old for another twenty yeara By that time she'll be nearly forty. Old enough to settle down when I do. Jt won't be a case of May and December. It'll be May and and August, at , worst She's a wonder girt And " At this point in his meditations Dlrck made a flying trip to New York, and shocked his staid tailor by a rush order for six suits of a cut and general style affected by college seniors. Right proud was Dirck when he lasted out three fast sets of tennis with his new divinity. And prouder was he of his prowess In keeping pace with her athletio strides in a breath-taking climb to the summit of Mount Torne. True, the last and steepest quarter of the climb did funny things to his leg muscles. And he was put to It to mask his hard breathing. Also he would have paid ten dollars for a pailful of ice water to swig. But Thetis' admiring praise of "Why, you climb like a boy!" more than made up for this. It even paid for the agony of stiff ness and of wracking ' back and leg cramps which made their presence, known when he woke next morning. - When the third set of tennis made him strangely anxious for an hour of drowsy loafing' instead of the five mite walk Thetis proposed, Dirck told himself that he was merely out of training and that a few weeks of such strenuous exercise would make him as supple as she. It was good to be young again! . It was passing good to be looked on as a god by this lithe nympth and to be preferred above the lads of her own set And so time sped hilariously and brought at last the date of the Juvenile house party. The choosing of the youthful guests was left wholly to Thetis. They arrived in a body, eight of them in all, with Thetis a shimmering meteor in their midst. . Malda Layne, in a dove colored soft after noon dress, was on the veranda to receive them. At her side stood Dirck Moylan, resplendent in a suit: that would have been extreme on a lad of twenty. He had shaven his mustache and his light hair was brushed back smoothly from his forehead in perfect imitation of the exquisite hero of a collar advertisement Long years of decorous parting had made the hair rebel at auch flippant treatment And vaseline had been called upon to assist art Dlrck had pictured the arrival of his guests the boisterous trooping -of the merry group up the broad steps, the shouts of laughter which should re-echo through the quiet old house; the gay repartee, the swirl of the fun spirit, the contagion of youthful mirth. And he beamed all over as the bunched automobiles disgorged their human freight The guests were -all young people he had met either at Thetis' home or at one or another of the country club dances to which she had taken him. Most of them he had met at the latter functions. For, acting on broad hints from Thetis, few of "the crowd" had Invaded her home during the past fortnight She had wanted Dirck all to herself. , Moylan's laughingly eager salute to his eight visitors today found no noisy response in their well trained hearts. They had been Invited to spend the week-end with a celebrity the blg , gest celebrity most of them had ever met This was an honor, something to boast of and to remember. A celebrity must be treated with due respect An elderly man of forty would have the right to common respect even If he had not teen a celebrity, ; Th youngster wer well bred. They t a glance, from Dlrck' mod of greeting, that h wa seeking to put tham at their a and that h wa trying to unbend, tor their ask, from hi pinned of advanced aa nd of fame. Amusedly they appreciated th courtesy of hi unbending. But they would not tak advent of It Moreover, they wer quit at their . They wer sot school children. The former generation could aot teach them anything In lf-poMsslon. Therefor they returned hi Mlutatliyi much a they might hav returned that of th lln of hostess at th charity ball. Dlrck felt oddly dashed for an Instant. Hut he recovered, a thousandfold more resolved to make thee grav eyed and decorous lad and maiden throw off their hy reserve, and to mak tham recognise that they and h wer of an ag and spoke th same language, Thea were Thetis' chums. They wtr hr "crowd." They and their Ilk wwr th folk who, thus, must henceforth b hi own chief Intimate. And h atrov to prove himself Ini tiated to th Mystlo Order of Youh. "Airs. Layne say wo'r to hav tea out her on th veranda," he announced. "Don't drea for dinner tonight, any of you. I've chartered th blggvst and bumpleat hay wagon In cap tivity. And, aoon a dinner I over, we'r going on a history making at raw rid. We're going to drive over to Green Fond and hav a plcnlo supper there, and com back her for a danc and a alng-song befor w turn in. How about it, eh?" HI beaming gas awept the half circle of polite young fucea, and he waited to heart the choru of delight The "chorus" might wall hav rehearsed Its responses in a deaf-mut asylum. But In a moment ono or two of th visitor rallied to th rescue of impaired courtesy. That will be very nice, Indeed," said Hilda Joyce bravely. "Ye," murmured Dicky Verlnder, who wa never without a ready answer, "won't It?" . Vaguely som other girl aald. "Why, yea." and with equal vagueness NeaSy Wade re marked, "Sure!" And then, after another in stant of sad silence, Malda herded them to the tea corner of th veranda before Thetl could find words to express her Indignation. But Dlrck wa not in th very least dlscour-. aged in his hope of putting th guests at their ease and of turning the ultra-civil assemblage Into the merry revel he had planned. Boy ishly he took control of the situation at tea, hi tempestuous high spirits sweeping the scene Ilk a flood. Som minute later he pulled up, realizing that, except for Malda' valiant assistance and Thetis' occaslonsl bewildered smiles or mono syllables, he might as well have been seeking to put hilarity into a state funeral Something was wrong. He could not for the life of him tell what The guests were toying languidly with their tea, most of them refusing the pile of Indlgestlbly delicious cake and bonbon wherewith the tables, were strewn. After tea came tennis. It was not at all the kind of tennis Dirck had seen played on the country club courts. The players seemed more and more oppressed by their host's un canny Joviality. At his jolllest sallies on or two of them began to glance worriedly at each . other. And the solemnity deepened. Malda strove mightily and with all her wealth of tact and good heart to second Moy lan. But it was no use. Even Thetis, as the host prattled on, began to lose a tithe of the hero worship that had filled her eyes of late and to look worried. Dinner was even more terrible than tea. From the head of the table Dlrck looked to right and left at lines of severely self-contained 'young people who ate with studied refinement and moderation and who conversed sparingly and In faultless good taste. Once early In the meal he attempted a limerick one of the few screamingly funny samples of that classlo form of rhythm which will bear mixed company repetition. He had b"en hoarding It for days. At the prelude of "There was a young man from" no less than three of the men started In blank terror of what might follow from the ribald lips of the celebrity. And two of the girls looked uneasy. The mildest of amuse ment ripples followed the verse. And the sorry . meal dragged on. - As the civilly uncomfortable young folk arranged themselves with martyr smiles In the maw of the straw upholstered hay wagOn and the team set off at a Joggly trot, Dlrck Moyland made his supreme effort; the Jouncing motion and the night air and the memories of his boy hood stirred , him to song! Thus, twenty-odd years ago, he and the straw riding lads and lasses of his home town had made night mu sical. 'All together, now!" he exhorted, loudly. "And look out for the dandy minor In th fourth line!" At the top of his voice a fair quality bari tone voice at that he began to warble: "I've been working on the railroad all th live long, day! , I'v been working on the railroad, Just to pas the time away! Don't you hear the " - He stopped, uncomfortably aware tha Malda Layne's soft contralto alone followed his sonor ous lead. Clearing his throat with embarrass ment and avoiding the eight pairs of level and perplexedly disapproving eyes, he chanced to recall that the railroad song was a relic of his own boyhood and. perhaps was not familiar to this new generation to which he had lately elected himself a member. But there was at least one good old chanty which was immortal. And he. knew how vehemently their voices would swell forth In it. So, still buoyantly optimistic, he began again, this time with the chorus of that classlo of many a campus and . barroom. "My Mothers' Old Red Shawl." But in the midst of the sublimely redundant lines: , "It was tattered, It was torn, it showed signs of being worn," he was once more aware that he and his gallant ally, Malda, were singing a duet to the disapproving silence of the eight listeners. After a final trial, this time of th dear old refrain: "She-e-e nev-ver saw the Streets of Cairo; On the Midway she nev-ver stray-y-y-ed," he gave over the ghastly task of song leading and asked, respectfully: "What up-to-date tunes "have taken the places of those old war horses? Start up some thing that you folks all can get together on, somebody. How about you Wade?" "I'm sorry," came stlflly, yet with utter cour tesy, from one corner of the bumping wagon, "but I don't sing. I'm sorry." , "Thetis, then!" begged Dirck. "Can't " "I wish I could help you. But,, really, I don't sing. In public anyway. I'm sorry." And, after a thousand hideous centuries, that wretched straw ride was ended. In th big hallway of Dirck's house huddled the guests, the men ruefully picking wisps of straw from their coats, the girls glancing unhappily at wrin kles and creases In their filmy summer clothes. Nealy Wade's stare roamed in aimless dreari ness across the hall, and rested by chance on an oblong blot of maroon stuff that hung on the farthest wall. Dlrck followed his glance and the host's squelched spirits rose. "I see you have the right taste!" he said, approvingly. 'That's one of the very best bit I have. Walt a second and I'll switch the lights on it It' a genuine Ahkout I waa lucky enough to pick it up In" "O," broke in Wade, apologetically, "I thought In the dim light you know, I thought It was a rug of some kind. . What did you say It was, sir? An Ahk " "I's an Ahkout rug," said Moylan, briefly. "Just a camel saddle rug. Dating to the Kha lifa period." Th term "ir had hit him ilk a whlplaeh. deatroylng eve hi sens of Merlin t th young fellow' cra Ignorance of traasurea "I uppoe, lr," pok up Katharine Iirear ly, "I uppee you hav ever o many art curt and auch thing and and bric-a-brae, Ilk that funny rug and" "Urtc-a brac!" moaned Dlrrk, cut to th soul Rallying h brought forth on or two all-1 . precloua rvllc auch a could rarv have fulled to nanar th envying admiration of a aavsn. Civilly th guest surveyed them. Dlrck, In hi rol of lecturer, stopped hort a. In a Venetian mirror' merciless reflection, he saw th liresrly girl ktlfl a yawn and Wad wink dolorously at on of hi fellow victim. "How about a dunce?? suggested Moylan, hi merry plsn making on last pltlabl eland. "This big hall Is Just the pine for It. An old fashioned dance, eh? What do you people say to a Virginia reel?" There waa a worried pause. Then Dorca Mervyn said, regretfully: "Why, it would b delightful! But I'm afraid I don't know It" "Neither do II" cam with gobbling prompti tude from three other guesta "O nonsense!" cried Dlrck, cutting a truly acrobatic pigeon wing and doing a valorous double shuttle lie spoke. "Take partners and tin up while I atari th muslo box! I'll call out th figure a w go on. It'll be no end of fun. Then I'll ahow you how to do a hoedown. It' " "I think," brok In Thetla Varick, a sob In her throat "I think I'll go to bed I'm very tired If you don't mind." Instantly half th party discovered a like fstlgue. They discovered It very courteously, Indeed, but none th less firmly. While Dlrck still wa starkly worried over the heartbroken not In Thetla vole th other were making their flawlessly correct good-night. He waa able to get rid of them and catch .up with Thetl wher aho had pauaed, behind the rest In an unlit angle of th stair. Coming close to her, he saw she was crying. "Why, Thetis!" he xclalmed In wonder. "What' th matter? Ha anything happened?" "O, everything's happened!" walled the girl, thrusting him away with one hand, while with th other ah still shielded her fsce. "Every thing! Let me go, please! I can't say anything. I won't say anything! Let me go. I'm going to bed." "You're going to tell me first what's th mat ter," he Insisted. And, because she was still a child who had Just received an Imperative command from a grown person not at all because she was a woman yielding to the caveman order of a lover she obeyed. "It's it's all so horrible!" she sobbed. "The way you're feeling?" he asked In eager solicitude, yet noting with wonder that hi anx iety was rather that of an adult for an Immature guest than of a wooer for hi lass. "Are you 111? Or " To the raglngly disillusioned Thetis his tons carried hints of paregorlo and hot water bags. And It swept away her final barriers of reserve and of self-controL "O!" she gasped furiously. "Can't you aee, even yet? Are you too dull? Or are you really in your dotage? - That' what I heard Dicky Vlrlnder whispering to Hilda when you did those clumsy elephant danc step down there Just now! He said you must be In your dotage, ' or Isn't it enough," she raged on, In the fine melodrama of youth, "Isn't It enough for you to shatter my Idol my vision of the superman, the genius, the demigod isn't It enough to have done that without ' "What in blazes are you talking about?" de manded Moylan In dire bewilderment. "What '! '- "O, why did you do It, Mr. Moylan?" shs " sobbed. "Why did you 7 I had I had built youi "W an altar In my heart I'm not ashamed to sa it now. Because it's in ruins. In ruins!" se repeated, enamored of her own magnificent phrase. "I had adored your work, and I had reverenced you for it ever since I was a mere girl Then' I met you. And I was so blinded by my ideals that you seemed to me Just-s-Just splendid. And it seemed unbelievable that you could stoop to the level of a nobody like myself and and be so human. J couldn't understand how a man of your age could b so congenial and and so " . 'Thanks!" Dlrck managed to stammer. She took his monosyllable for sarcasm, and It lashed her righteous Indignation Into fresh speed. ,: - "When you asked us all here," she flashed, "It seemed wonderful to me. It was going to be Ilk the things I had read about pilgrimages to Buskin's homo and all that I explained It to the crowd. And they understood. Even the lowbrowed ones like Nealy Wade. And we catae here. What happened?" "I I don't quite understand," tammered Dirck. "I " "What happened V h eried, melodrama once more In full swing. "You behaved Ilk a clown, like a buffoon, "like like O, like one of those awful old men in musical comedies that try to act young! I could have gone through th floor, if it hadn't been I was so miserable at the smashing of my Idol! . At dinner, with that silly limerick and then those absurd songs, and and then pranc ing around Just now, and and wanting us to prance, too! O, I suppose It is wrong for me to be saying such things to a man of your age! 'It's disrespectful and all that And I ought to apologize. But I'm too heart-sick now to care. From the minute we got here you were like the comlo drunkard on the stage! And I had told them you were my my ideal! I know, of . course, you meant all-right But but " Her voice went all to pieces on the last ' s word. Face in hands, she fled from the alcove ' and up the stairs. Long and with Jaw ajar, Dirck Moylan stood there on the dim stairway, gaping after her. To -the best of his belief, his brain was a confused blank. As a matter of fact, it was working over- ' time. Beneath the numb blankness of surface , emotions it was setting Dirck's mental house In order.- When Moylan descended the stairway with lifeless tread ten minutes later he was annoyedly aware of a crick In his back from sitting so long In a cramped position in the Jolting hay wagon. Also the muscle strain from the mountain climb was once more making itself keenly felt in his legs. He slouched into the library, with the step of an old man. A fire twinkled on the hearth, for the late evening had turned cool At one side f the fireplace Malda Layne was sitting. On the opposite side of the hearth a soft, deep chair stood inviting him. ' But Dlrck did not heed th Invitation. Th sight of Maida, sitting there in all her serenelr beautiful early maturity and poise, went straight to the man's bruised vanity. She was looking up at him with that same understanding and comradely smile he had So long learned to look for. And far back In her gentle eyes lurked Just now a world of motherly sympathy and a yearning to cpmfort It was too much for Dirck. His hastily rehearsed platitudes about the house party's failure went by the board. "Oh, Maida!" he blurted, hurrying up to her with both hands outstretched as if for consola tion. ' "Isn't it all rotten? Isn't it ghastly? Did ever a man make such a fool of himself? Was -there ever such another wild ass of the desert? I might have better have bribed a bunch of newsboys to let me shoot marbles with them if I really wanted to con myself into thinking I waa young again! Young? I've got Methuselah backed across th board. I haven't been old long enough to get used to it But somehow the only part of tonight's Idiocy that make me bo re all through la the 'fool figure I must be cutting in your eye. An old cuss Ilk m trying "Hush!" she cut short his childish outburst (Ceatlaacd ea tf roar J '