11
SYNOPSIS
Victoria Herrendeen. a vivacious little
girl, had been too young to feel the
shock that came when her father, Keith
Herrendeen, lost his fortune. He is a
gentle, unobtrusive soul. His wife,
Magda, cannot adjust herself to the
change. She is a beautiful woman, fond
of pleasure and a magnet for men's
attention. Magda and Victoria have
been down at a summer resort and Keith
Joins them for the week-end. Magda
leaves for a bridge party, excusing her
self for being such a "runaway." The
Herrendeens return to their small San
Francisco apartment. Keith does not
approve of Magda's mad social life and
they quarrel frequently. Magda re
ceives flowers from a wealthy man from
Argentina whom she had met less than
a week before. Manners arrives a few
hours later. Magda takes Victoria to
Nevada to visit a woman friend who has
a daughter named Catherine. There she
tells her she is going to get a divorce.
Victoria soon is in boarding school with
her friend Catherine. Magda mar
ries Manners and they spend two years
In Argentina. Victoria has studied in
Europe and at eighteen she visits her
mother when Ferdy rents a beautiful
home. Magda is unhappy over Ferdy’s
drinking and attentions to other women.
Vic dislikes him. When her mother and
stepfather return to South America, Vic
toria refuses to go with them. Magda
returns and tells Vic she and Ferdy have
separated. Meanwhile Keith has remar
ried. Victoria is now a student nurse.
Magda has fallen in love with Lucius
Farmer, a married artist. While she
and Vie prepare for a trip to Europe,
Ferdy takes a suite in their hotel.
The night before Magda and Vic are to
sail, Magda elopes with Lucius Farmer.
While nursing the children of Dr. and
Mrs. Keats, Vic meets Dr. Quentin Har
disty, a brilliant physician, much sought
after by women, who is a widower with
a crippled daughter. In a tete-a-tete at
the Keats home, he kisses Vic. Several
days later he invites her with other
guests to spend a week-end at his cabin.
Vic is enchanted with the cabin. Next
morning she and Quentin go hiking and
return ravenous. The party is disrupt
ed Sunday afternoon by the arrival of
Marian Pool, a divorced woman. Vic is
jealous of Mrs. Pool and a few days
later tells Mrs. Keats she is going to
Honolulu. In his office, Quentin ques
tions Vic about leaving. He proposes to
her. She accepts him and they are
married. Vic and Quentin are idyllicly
happy in their home. During six years
Victoria has four children. The Har
distys are entertaining guests at Sun
day supper, when Victoria’s mother sud
denly arrives from Europe.
CHAPTER VI—Continued
—8—
"Vic looks astonished, and well
she may!” the newcomer said, be
ginning daintily on her meaL "No,
no wine, Quentin,” she said easily
to the son-in-law she had met only a
moment earlier. "I’ll have coffee.
Would I be a horrible pest if I asked
for hot milk—I’ve had my coffee
for so long with hot milk that I
can’t seem to get used to it any
other way!”
She loosened the frilled coat; Vic
toria noticed with a disturbed heart
} that her mother, under the first im
pression of fussiness, of frippery, in
her clothes, also gave a distinct ef
fect of shabbiness.
The group broke up early; they
were all tired, and Magda especially
so. She took possession of Victoria’s
one small spare room gayly, ob
serving that she did not mind it at
all; her trunks often had to stand
out in the hall. Victoria, suddenly
{ feeling flat and discouraged, and
that the long day had been too
much for her, and that it was a
formidable thing to be managing a
busy husband, a houseful of chil
dren, five servants, and to be fac
ing besides the prospect of illness
and fresh responsibility, satisfied
herself with only a few weary mo
ments of conversation with her
mother, as the latter prepared her
self for bed.
Mrs. Herrendeen assured her
daughter that she would be asleep
in ten minutes and must be awak
ened in the morning—"unless some
body’d bring me just the simplest
breakfast?”—but Vicky was not so
fortunate. She lay awake most of
the night trying to fit her mother
into her so completely changed life,
wondering what would happen now,
disturbed by a hundred vague im
pressions and fears of she knew
not what. Her poor faded mother,
so gallant in the laces and frills,
the outworn, badly worn finery!
There was no alternative; Mother
must be made a guest of honor in
this already crowded house for as
long as she chose to stay. But
even tonight’s glimpse of her had
made Vicky feel upset and unsure
of herself.
“If I had any character I wouldn’t
do this!” she reproached herself.
I "Things always look different in the
morning; nothing is as bad as it
seems at night!”
She really knew very little of
what her mother’s life had been in
the last ten or eleven years. Vic
toria had been too much absorbed
in her own affairs to think much of
her mother’s, and Mrs. Herrendeen
had not written very often. In the
beginning, Vic remembered, there
y had been a long, luxurious cxplana
| tion, certainly not a confession, but
there at least had been a long ex
planatory letter, gay and confident,
unashamed, unapologetic. Magda
and her Lucius had been in a lov
ers’ paradise in Tahiti then, and
their escapade had seemed to them
justified by their complete happi
ness.
After a year of that they had trav
eled, first to South America, and
then to Europe, and finally had
found themselves "divinely placed"
in some tiny German town with
Rosa taking care of*them. "It costs
us exactly nothing,” Magda had
written her daughter, “and that is
the main consideration with beg
gars like ourselves! Lucius can paint
to his heart’s content, and I can at
last catch up on some reading and
go on with my French, which these
hectic years have sadly interrupted.
Paris is near enough for an occa
sional spree.”
That had been the last heard from
Rothenberg. Just why or how this
ideal arrangement had terminated
Victoria never had known. But her
mother's next letter had been from
Biarritz, and noi in that nor in any
subsequent letter had she ever men
tioned Lucius Farmer again. She
had usually been with “delightful
friends,” or she had a “tiny diggins”
in Paris, in Florence, in Monte Car
lo. And always the cramped note
of money shortage had been there.
Once she had been “selling darling
Sibyl Hudderstone’s divine things—
giving them away, rather!"—and
once she apparently had had some
sort of agency for powders and per
fumes; “because one must make
one’s poor little 40 per cent if one
can,” she had explained.
The last letters had quite frankly
asked for financial help; Vicky was
married now, and if she could help
her Mummy just a little it would
be such a godsend. “For we don’t
count money here as you do, dar
ling,” Magda had reminded her
daughter. “What you spend on those
frightful ice-cream sodas and on
movies would take care of a whole
family here.”
In the morning, after she and
Quentin had shared their early
breakfast, and after the usual visit
to the kitchen and to the surging
and shouting nursery, Victoria
somewhat wearily prepared a tray,
not forgetting the continental touch
of a pitcher of hot milk, and add
ing a tiny clear green glass vase in
which sprawled three stiff brilliant
nasturtiums. Mrs. Herrendeen was
awake when her daughter came in.
"Oh, you darling child, with all
you have to do—and the newspaper,
too—but I shall miss my Paris pa
per; these American papers never
have anything in them.”
“Did you sleep, Mummy?” Vic
asked, with her kiss.
"I slept divinely. I always sleep
divinely,” the other woman an
swered, her cheerful voice and
freshened face bearing witness to it.
“I meant to lie awake,” she went
on, beginning her breakfast, "and
think what a smart child I have,
and what a lovely home this is.”
Quentin liked her; that was a
great help. Magda had still the se
cret of pleasing and interesting
men, whatever it was. Faded,
fussily dressed, affected and artifi
cial, yet there was something real
and affectionate and clinging in her
nature that all males liked. About
a week after her return Quentin
electrified his wife by suggesting
that they make up a party for the
first night of the opera. Stern had
sent him a box; Stern was on the
committee; it "might be rather
fun.” Quentin, wl»o never wanted
to go anywhere!
"Fun!” Vicky echoed, excited and
interested. It would be the time of
all times to return the Perrys’ hos
pitality, and for a sixth they might
ask ni*?, old, musical Dr. Ward.
CHAPTER VII
It was at the opera that they first
saw Serena Morrison.
Not that Vicky or anyone in her
neighborhood knew who the woman
was, at first. With four men, she
was sitting in the forward seat of
a box; an ashen blonde in a black
velvet gown, with petal-smooth bare
shoulders, and deep-set, umber
shadowed eyes. Everyone in the
house was looking at her when the
curtain went down and the lights
went up, but if she was conscious of
the admiration and curiosity she ex
cited she gave no sign of it.
"That’s Joe Younger—that stout
fellow with her,” Quentin said, lay
ing down his glasses after a frank
inspection. “By gosh, she is beauti
tifui!”
"Oh, Quent, you know him!”
Vicky said eagerly, leaning forward
in her old chocolate lace to have
another look. “Couldn’t you slip
over and meet her?”
"No time now—I will in the next
entr’acte!” Quentin whispered as
the house lights fanned down and
the footlights went up. But before
the next act there was the familiar
whisper in the back of the box.
Vicky had resignedly expected it; it
always came somehow when they
were daring enough to go to the
theater.
“Dr. Hardisty?” the whisper said
in the dark. “The hospital on the
telephone, Doctor. Dr. Bruce. He
said it was urgent"
And then Quentin was groping in
the gloom for his hat and coat, and
off in full evening regalia for some
hot, odorous surgery, with the Val
kyries’ wild scream interrupted half
way. It was too bad, but it wasn’t
the first time and wouldn’t be the
last, Vicky reminded her mother
philosophically, when they were in
the car going home.
“And lucky for you, tool" Magda
responded.
"Lucky?”
“Well, he was perfectly mad
about that blonde woman, whoever
she was. He was going over to that
box just to meet her. But I thought
you handled that very cutely, Vic,”
Magda said.
“Handled what?” Vicky was gen
uinely amazed.
"Oh, saying she was lovely and
you’d like to know who she was.
That was smart, Vic.”
“There was nithing smart to
that!” Vicky laughed, in generous
amusement. But she felt just a
little chilled, nevertheless. A bleak
breath of wind from an almost-for
gotten country seemed to touch her
cheek. "Quentin admires beauty,”
she presently said. “But that’s as
far as it goes."
“Just the same I’ll bet you some
thing, Vic, that he finds out tomor
row who she is.”
“Mother, you’re incorrigible!”
They were at home now, yawningly
dragging themselves up the long
stairs. “I’ll bet you a chocolate
bar that he never mentions her
again!”
They were in the house the fol
lowing afternoon when Quentin
came in to smile wearily at Kenty
and Susan, who were cavorting
about in pajamas, and to discuss
the products of the Argentine with
Gwen Magda was playing solitaire
by the fire.
“Oh, listen, Vic, remember the
blonde Venus in the box last night?”
Quentin presently asked. Magda
looked up, and Vicky turned with a
“He Wasn’t a Gentleman; It
Simply Wasn't There!”
little color in her face from a minute
inspection of Susan’s reputedly
burned finger. “She’s an English
Mrs. Harrison or Morrison or Robin
son or something,” Quentin said.
“I telephoned Joe Younger today—
I wanted to ask him something
about the golf club anyway. Her
husband is an English officer at
tached to the foreign office or some
thing—they left today for China.”
He fell to musing, a half-smile on
his face. “That was certainly one
beautiful woman!" he said.
“If you want to hold a man like
Quentin, you ought to—well, flirt
with him!" Magda said.
Victoria laughed.
“Flirt with my own husband?”
“Something like that. Not flirt
exactly, but—interest him,” Magda
said, a little at a loss for the exact
words she wanted. “Keep him busy.
Unless a man is kept busy he gets
into mischief—especially a sheik
like Quentin, with a voice all the
women fall for.”
“I don’t know that all the women
fall for his voice,” Vicky said, un
alarmed. “And as for keeping him
busy, I don't know what would keep
a man busy if an exacting profes
sion, five children, four servants, a
wife and a mother don’t!"
“Oh, Lord, not that kind of busy!”
Magda scoffed. “I don’t mean wor
rying about the furnace or if the
new electric light bulbs came. And
I don’t mean curvature of the spine,
either. A man’s got to have some
play, Vic. The sensible thing for a
woman like you to do is cut out all
this nursery stuff, have a hair-do
every week, get a new lipstick and
some ’peau de jeunesse’ and lie
around in the mornings reading
fashion magazines!
“I don’t know where you’d be to
day if you’d cut out all this nursery
stuff!” Vicky wanted more than
once to say good-naturedly. But she
never did.
“Men have always liked me, and
yet I’ve never had any character
and I never do anything I don’t want
to do,” the older woman explained
simply. “I sleep late, I wander
downtown in the afternoon to a mov
ie; I never assume the slightest re
sponsibility, and I am altogether
unwise and idle and useless!”
In the beginning Victoria would
laugh at such whimsicalities. But
lier mother had not been long her
guest before she discovered that
they were partly true; Magda really
never did make any effort, or as
sume any responsibility, except to
interest and please men. She
would not be left alone at home at
night with the children, even though
they were all asleep in their beds.
"One of them would set something
on fire, and then you’d think I de
liberately killed the lot!” she plead
ed, and the mere suggestion of this
calamity prevented Victoria from
ever urging the arrangement.
For the rest, it was astonishing
to discover that Magda’s self-re
spect had suffered no whit by her
long and exciting career.
In the beginning of the European
experiences, Lucius Farmer had be
come “strange.” He had been a de
lightful person in Tahiti and Ma
jorca, but somehow southern Ger
many had affected him badly. "It
wasn’t his fault, but he didn’t really
have quality, Vic," Magda ex
plained it, generously. "He wasn't
a gentleman; it simply wasn’t
there! Perhaps I was to blame for
thinking that it ever was.”
Victoria listened on. scrambling
as she did so along the line of the
sitting-room bookcases, taking out
children’s books, matching sets,
slacking the volumes neatly. Now
and then she sat back on her heels,
smiling at her mother. Magda busy
with a nail file and a tiny pair of
scissors, occasionally in her turn
raised her eyes from her hands
and looked seriously at Vic, while
without anger or resentment she re
counted the strange actions of Lu
cius Farmer. After all she, Magda,
had done for him, he had been un
appreciative enough to desert her.
As the days went by, and Vic
found herself drewn more and more
under her mother's influence, af
fected more and more by her moth
er’s point of view, she found it in
creasingly difficult to maintain her
own standing; the solid earth rocked
a little sometimes beneath her feet.
Poor faded Mummy with nothing
to show for all the flattered, roman
tic years, the presents and the
checks, the beautiful lace and the
beautiful gowns—Mummy couldn’t
be entirely right in her preposterous
ideas and attitudes, but there were
moments when Victoria felt uneas
ily that perhaps she wasn't entirely
wrong, either.
Mummy, for one very important
thing, thought that having more
than one or two children was a
mistake. It was a forgivable mis
take. ‘‘For you have them so eas
ily, Vic, and you do adore them so.
But I tell you it’s selfish. You’ll
lose him!”
Victoria felt that she could afford
to laugh at this. According to
Mummy every man between the
ages of sixteen and eighty was in
terested in any reasonably pretty
woman, anywhere, everywhere, at
all times and seasons. No wife was
safe!
But Magda was not to be laughed
out of her position. She said
thoughtfully: ‘‘Women must go
crazy about him. He’s stunning!”
“He’s forty-three!" Vic laughed.
“And he has a large family and the
hardest surgery practice in the
city.”
“Forty-three. He’s not at the dan
gerous age yet," Magda mused. “Is
anyone specially crazy about him?”
“There’s always some woman tel
ephoning,” Vic answered unalarm
edly. “I know the signs. But he
doesn’t take them seriously.”
Magda was hardly listening; her
eyes were narrowed in speculation.
“I don’t think any woman gets
hold of a man,” Vic submitted, com
fortably relaxed in a big chair now,
with her feet stretched out before
her. “I don’t believe any woman
loses her husband because some
other woman wants him,” she sub
stituted, beginning again. Her
mother regarded her in astonish
ment.
“What do you think?” Magda de
manded.
“I mean I think the wife has lost
him first,” Victoria explained.
“Ah, yes, but it all depends upon
what you mean by losing him,” the
other woman said. “It doesn't al
ways mean that they’re quarreling,
that they’ve made up their minds to
separate! It may mean that they’ve
drifted apart—perhaps they don’t
realize it themselves . . .”
"Mother, do you really believe
that all married women are waiting
for affairs wan other men to come
along; that all married men have
an eye out for charming women—
fresh women?”
Mrs. Herrendeen’s surprised stare
was sufficient answer.
“Why, but of course!” she said,
amazed. “Vicky, look at them!
They do.”
“They all don’t!” Vicky muttered.
But she was thinking.
(TO HE CONTINUED)
Virginia’s Capital
Richmond, capital of Virginia,
was once also capital of the Confed
eracy, and many things associated
with the war between the states are
to be found there. The White House
of the Confederacy is now a fasci
nating museum. The Capitol, the
main unit of which was designed by
Thomas Jefferson, is the meeting
place of the oldest representative
legislative assembly in the new
world. Old St. John’s church is fa
mous as the place where Patrick
Henry fired the flames of the Amer
ican Revolution with his stirring
oration ending, “Give me liberty or
give me death!” Near the city are
many battlefields of the war, which
have been preserved as park areas.
Keeping the
Mouth Healthy
By
DR. JAMES W. BARTON
® Bell Syndicate.—WNU Service.
THERE is no question but
that the use of mouth
washes and tooth brushes
helps to keep the mouth clean,
the breath sweet, removes
tartar, and removes little
particles of food which may
cause cavities in the teeth.
However, more than mouth washes
and tooth powders and pastes is
Dr. Barton
necessary to keep
the mouth complete
ly healthy in many
cases.
When the tongue
is coated, tartar
present on the teeth,
the throat red and
congested, the first
thought should be to
cleanse out the low
er bowel. Our
grandparents before
them all gave a
good purgative —
usually castor oil or Epsom salts—
in these cases of unhealthy mouth.
In the Journal of Laboratory and
Clinical Medicine, Dr. Mills, Uni
versity of Cincinnati, says, "A
close association seems to exist
between the first part of the food
tract—the mouth—and the last part
—the colon or large intestine. Pu
trefaction or decaying of food
wastes in the large intestine seems
to result in bad breath, excessive
deposit of tartar, and lowered vi
tality of the gums. It is also thought
that even decay of the teeth may
be traced to excessive wastes or
constipation in the lower bowel or
intestine.
Remove the Putrefaction.
“Putrefaction in the lower bowel
or intestine is also the cause of
many cases of acne—pimples, and
the removal of such putrefaction oft
en brings most rapid and complete
disappearance of severe cases of
acne.
“It is suggested that these mouth
and skin troubles result from the
wastes from this putrefaction in the
large intestine getting absorbed into
the blood and carried by the blood
to the glands in the mouth and in
the surface of the skin—the saliva
and the sweat glands.”
The use of the bismuth meal in
getting the X-ray picture of the
working of the intestine has helped
some of these cases as this heavy
powder scrapes or scrubs the lining
of the bowel, removing the wastes
and the organisms causing the pu
trefaction.
However, Dr. Mills recommends
the use of kaolin—the clay used in
making china or porcelain—as the
most rapid and certain treatment of
putrefaction. A prescription of it
is not expensive. He recommends
kaolin 6 ounces, water 4 ounces, and
a simple syrup 2 ounces. The dose
is half an ounce, 4 teaspoonfuls,
twice a day before meals.
• • •
Water Balance and Weight.
I have spoken before of the ama
teur oarsman or sculler, who, hav
ing won the Diamond Sculls at Hen
ley some years previously, decided
to make another try for this coveted
trophy. Accordingly he arranged
with a boxing instructor to "work
out” every day for an hour at box
ing and gymnasium work. Despite
the fact that he took off three pounds
every day, he was the same weight
at the end of a month as when he
started.
He stopped his exercise believing
that with his added years it had be
come impossible for him to lose any
of his accumulated fat.
What was the matter? Why did
he not lose weight?
His weight was kept up because
of the great amount of water he
drank—one to two gallons every
day. Had he taken a small amount
of water each time he felt thirsty
he would likely have lost almost half
a pound daily.
And sometimes when just the or
dinary amount of water, tea, cof
fee or other liquids are taken daily
—two to three quarts—there is lit
tle or no loss for days and some
times weeks. This is due to the fact
that each individual has what is
known as a water balance—the
amount of liquids in various organs
and tissues of the body, that appears
to be the right amount to keep them
in good condition—skin, blood, di
gestive, joint, spinal and other
juices.
Thus we find at times an over
weight individual faithfully cut
down food for a week or even two
weeks and find the loss of weight
disappointingly small. Discouraged,
no further attempt at reducing is
made, because he or she feels "just
meant to be fat.”
Now, if our sculler and this other
individual who found no loss of
weight after all this work or cut
ting down on food, had continued for
another two or three weeks or a
month the reduction in weight would
have been very satisfactory. Once
water balance is established, the
weight may go off at the rate of one
or two pounds per day.
"It has been shown that under
carefully controlled conditions even
a normal individual would maintain
his body weight or even add to it
while he was being underfed.”
For Dress and Utility
1268
M2
1255
• WHY Mollie R-are
* ’ you going out
again? My own mother
has become a gadabout
and all because she
made herself such a pretty new
dress. Really, Ma, those soft
graceful lines make you look lots
slimmer. I think the long rippling
collar has a good deal to do with
it. Or maybe it’s because the skirt
fits where it should and has plenty
of room at the bottom.”
“Yes, My Darling Daughter.”
“Daughter, dear, how you do
run on! Imitate Sis; put your
apron on and have the dusting
done when I get back from the
Civic Improvement League meet
ing. And speaking of aprons, that
is the cleverest one Sis ever had.
I love the way it crosses in the
back.”
“So do I, Mom, and see how it
covers up my dress all over. Good
by, Mom, have a good time.”
Sisterly Chit Chat.
“Sis, run upstairs for my apron,
won’t you? I wouldn’t have a spot
on this, my beloved model, for
all the world. It’s my idea of
smooth: all these buttons; no belt;
these here new puffed sleeves;
and this flare that’s a flare.”
“Just you wait, Miss, till I grow
up! Your clothes won’t have a
look in because I’ve already be
gun to Sew-My-Own. All right. I’m
going.”
And so on well into the after
noon!
The Patterns.
Pattern 1268 is for sizes 36 to 52.
Size 38 requires 5Vi yards of 39
inch material plus lVfe yards of 1%
inch bias binding for trimming.
Pattern 1292 is designed for sizes
12 to 20 (30 to 42 bust). Size 14
requires 4% yards of 39 inch ma
terial.
Pattern 1255 is designed in sizes
6, 8, 10, 12, and 14 years. Size
8 requires 1% yards of 35 inch
material for the blouse and 1%
yards for the apron.
Send for the Barbara Bell
Spring and Summer Pattern Book.
Make yourself attractive, practi
cal and becoming clothes, select
ing designs from the Barbara Bell
well-planned, easy-to-make pat
terns. Interesting and exclusive
fashions for little children and the
difficult junior age; slenderizing,
well-cut patterns for the mature
figure; afternoon dresses for the
most particular young women and
matrons and other patterns for
special occasions are all to be
found in the Barbara Bell Pattern
Book. Send 15 cents tod^y for your
copy.
Send your order to The Sewing
Circle Pattern Dept., Room 1020,
211 W. Wacker Dr., Chicago, I1L
Price of patterns, 15 cents (in
coins) each.
© Bell Syndicate.—WNU Service.
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j
