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About The Omaha morning bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 1922-1927 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 21, 1923)
torily toward her guests. "People, allow me to present you In bulk to Miss Pansy Flower of Tallnhala, the dearest friend of a dearest friend of Kline, and of whom I have heard so murh I feel I hn\e known her all my life. Pansy, dear, your fellow victims -my house party." Miss Pansy Flower, standing be fore an unknown hostess, a fiance to whom she was passionately anx ious to do credit, and a set of glit tering beings as far removed from Tallahnla as the Occident from the Orient, bowed charmingly, and, Mrs. Hraithewalte realized amazedly, with no faintest trace of embarrass tnent. When she smiled she flashed into view very white teeth. "I'm very glad to meet you all," she told them in a slow, deliciously southern voire. "Only, please, Mrs. Hraithewalte," she Pegged her host ess, in a lower note, "it's not Pansy, but Patsy. Isn't that Just life for you? I’ve been trying for 10 years now (o live down that awful name and here. Just as I think I've done it. if it doesn't rise up and hit me In the face Just when I'm trying to make an extra good impression." Mrs. Bralthewnite had all the sen nations of putting out her foot to ■lescend one step and unexpectedly lurching down four. By the time tea wan over she was realizing that the act was not proceeding at all as she had anticipated. Major Trenton won beside Patsy. There was quite n little circle about her, In fact, col lecting with the quick, facile curi natty of house parties and steamer decks- -entertained, amused, but do eidedly friendly. Tony Criasford, who hod been lounging In f shadowed comer of tlie fireplace, rose and made his way through the group to her side. ■'I wonder if I'm going to be for tunate enough to have you remem ber me. Miss Flower?" he asked her. “I had the pleasure of meet ing you last summer—though not for as long us I should have liked — when I was motoring down south," The faint color in Patsy's cheeks deepened to rose; she knitted thoughtful brows for a moment be fore answering—Mister Carrlsford, isn't It? I knew your face right away." And then, before her audience quite realised what hail happened, Tony, murmuring some tiling about a view, had piloted her to a distant window. Mrs. Braithe waite, her lips parting mechanically every olher moment In the famous stride, could imag.ne Just what the low. tender voice was saying, what the dark eyes wore looking down into gray. It seemed to her the hale in her heart must beat the girl down where Bhe stood. laiter, before her greatest com forter and ally, she sharpened new weapons and shifted several posi tions. The great mirror gave back ot her encouragingly an image of ivory and gold, as flawless as tlio famous diamonds about her throat. What laid the girl to fight it with, slip raised white arms in imperious < littllenga. Beauty? Slio laughed scornfully. Cleverness? Merely an amusing way of putting things in a pretty drawl. It was only she was iliffvent—there lay the danger. It was that that caught Tony, had held the others this afternoon. She must fathom fully the secret of this difference before she could fight it successfully—and then she cleared her brow and turned a smil tng weeloroe toward Patsy's hesitnt log knock. ‘ I’m dressed," the girl told her from the threshhold—no boyish Pat sy this, but a charmingly feminine little figure In the simplest and air lest of white georgettes. That lim ited portion of neek and arms Tullu hala church standards permitted to show were very young and white, her cheeks very pink, her eyes wide and deepened mysteriously to black. At her belt was a marvelous boquet of buds in which Mrs. Uraithewaite recognized Tony's unerring taste. A Muaint picture she made—old-fash ioned, yes, but dowdy or badly dressed, no, Mrs. Uraithewaite ad judged with suddenly coinpresstsl lips. Demurely alluring was per haps the best description. Mrs. Uraithewaite came to a swift do vision. She putout her hand and with a gracious gesture drew the girl to her side. "1 have a little engage ment present here I've been keeping for you. Just lock the door for u moment, will you, dear?” A moment later, before Patsy's fascinated gaze, still seated at her ilresslng table, she had pressed a desecrating forefinger into the very heart of one of its Ivory roses. The mirror above rolled back as obedi ently as the robber's cave before Ali Ilaba. disclosing behind It a small rose lined opening from which Mrs. Uraithewaite. smiling at the alarm ing dimensions of Patsy's eyes, se lected a slender strand of ame thysts. Another swift pressure on I he rose opposite and the mirror had slid noiselessly back to staid ini mobility. "Rather a neat invention, isn't It?" Mrs. Uraithewaite smiled up at the girl. "I rather flatter myself the most sophisticated burglar would never think of that." “It's Just like the Arabian Night*.' " Patsy told her breathless ly. “Everything If this carpet were to rise up and carry me right out through the window I shouldn't tie in the slightest surprise^." I hope it won't," said Mrs. llralthewalte hospitably. "I should be heartbroken to lots- you so soon." She clasped her necklace about the girl's throat with a sudden Jealous pang at Its firm youth, and step ped back ostensibly to admire the effect. "It goes beautifully with your coloring," she announced. "That’s a sweet dress you have on, Patsy, but I wonder—1 do so want you to look your very best for Tony tonight.." Crossing the room swift ly, she rolled back one of the tall glass doors that guarded row after row of costly garments. "This Is a gown belonging to a little cousin of mine. It had Just arrived when she got word of her mother's death. Of course It will be out of style when she Is out of mourning, so she left it here and told me to do what 1 wanted with it," Mrs. Braithewaite concluded carelessly her elaborate explanation; she had gone to a good deal of trouble the past week buy ing the gown for this particular moment. "She's Just about your sise, I imagine. Do slip It on, Patsy, and let’s try It. I know Tony would Just love you in It. And It's exactly the shade for the neck lace." Patsy held up the costly, sequined thing, glittering like opal Are against the light. "It's beautiful, simply beautiful," she said, honest admiration in her voice. "And it's darling of you to want ine to wear it. Don't think for a momen I have any feeling about any one else's clothes—no poor minister's daugh ter could have that, goodness kows. I've been fetched up in second hand garments. It’s just—well, that dress Just isn’t me, you see — I wouldn't be myself at all. I'll love to wear the necklace—I do think It's so sweet of you to give it to me—it’s my very first engagement present. But the dress I — Just couldn't feel comfortable In a gor geous think like that. I made this myself," she ended in a lighter tone, eyeing ruefully her simple toilette. “Tallnhaia all over, isn't it?" She gave her merry little shrug. "It’s a good thing nobody hut Tony cares what I wear or what I m like. It was then that Mrs. Br&ithe waite realized the "difference" she hail been trying to plumb—the point or view that had enabled tills un trained girl from Georgia to enter with charming ease a strange draw ing room and to face with shining, wholly fearless eyes her first formal dinner. It had evidently never so remotely occurred to her that people were judging, perhaps condemning her. Her outlook on life was so wholly outward that no fleeting, dis turbing thought of a Miss Flower of Georgia ruffled for an instant its serenity. Its Joyous interest in any one and every one she met. Here was a difference with u vengeance from every other woman under neath her roof—anil a situation Mrs. Hraithewalte, with all her wide social experience, had ne\ --coun tered before. "Are you afraid?" she heard Tony murmur to his fiancee just before dinner was served, and caught the astonishment in Patsy’s eyes. "Afraid—of these nice people? You can ask that of a person who's led mothers’ meetings and had to make church socials go when half the people there weren’t speaking to one another! At least every one here would mean to be kind,” said simple hearted Patsy. “And as they don't know that I'm—perhaps— going lo marry you. they wont rare at all what I'm like anyway." "Take back that 'perhaps,' ” she heard Tony's anient command as she bore down upon them with a sulky looking yong Viking with dark red liair and very blue eyes below frowning brows. "I'm going to let the Gold Brick take her In tonight.” she told Tony in a smiling aside. "But I'll put you where you can watch her." An enemy flanki-d on one side by l lie Gold Brick, on the other by old Mr. Sturtevant. was quite a stroke of genius, Mrs. Braithewalte flat tired herself. Even the dauntless Patsy—60 Innocently confident of the kindliness of this world—might find It difficult to reflect credit upon a critical fiance under such circum stances. And Tony could certainly find no fault with the situation. Had she not generously given Patsy the most eligible man present on the one side and the very concentrated, if fossilised, essence of blue blood on the other? The Gold Brick, indeed, more than fulfilled her highest hopes. His el bow on the table, his back flatter ingly toward Patsy, ruthlessly ob livious with his far famed rudeness of all social obligations, he ex changed horse pedigrees with Alicia Van Sit tart, a resplendent blonde. But Mr. Sturtevant, at once the pride and despair of hostesses, whose name added luster to invita tion lists and whose dinner partner reeled exhausted from the table, who had sat through 10.000 dinners impregnable to every known kind of conversational assault, was cruelly failing a too trusting host ess. Incredibly, ho was talking to I'atsy Flower of Georgia. It was just before the peach Melba that Jimmy Peyton, alias the Gold Brick, discovering with disgust that Miss Van 8ittart did not know as much about horses as she had pretended, took down his elbow, veered about in his seat, and like wise observed the miracle. "By Jove!" he demanded casually. "How did you get the phonograph started? It has been run down for over 60 years. The old fellow,” he elucidated further to Patsy's up lifted eyebrows. “No one has ever been able to make hint peep before. How in thunder did you man age it?” "Maybe my having you on the other side, might account for it,” Patsy suggested. “Probably in his generation they taught him it was only polite to address a few words— of some description—to whoever was sitting beside you at a dinner party. You wouldn't believe it, but we'ro still so old-fashioned we cling to that funny old custom in the south. I can see you've outgrown It in the east.” "Wow!” said Jimmy Peyton. "Biff and bang! Say I haven’t heard anything as frank as that Blnce freshman year at Prep school.” He was wheeling around now, fixing upon her bis moody, scowling, curi ously alert gase. "Was I rude?” he demanded of her. "I believe I'm al ways considered so at dinners.” "The record certainly wasn't bro ken tonight," Patsy told him calmly, "(hough perhaps I’m not a good judge, as this is my first dinner up north and my first really formal dinner anywhere. But down south I can assure men have been lynched for less. Do you reckon I'll meet many like you?” she asked him ap prehensively. “Or are you the only one of your kind extant?” "O, I say," Mr. Peyton protested, albeit feebly. “I’m not quite as bad as that, am I?" He grinned at her somewhat sheepishly. You would never believe how different he could look when he smiled, Patsy noted with interest. "I was talking about horses and then I always for get everything," he condescended to explain. “If I hadn't started on them I’d have probably remem tiered to say soim-thing to you.” "How I should have cherished it!' 'Patsy remarked with a meek ness which made Mr. Peyton sud denly sit up very struight and fix a suspicious glance upon her. "I heard what you said about horses," she continued placidly. “You are entirely wrong about I<ady Belle. She belonged to a great friend of my uncle's, and I've ridden her often myself. You made several other mistakes, too." "By Jove, what were they?" Mr. Peyton was beginning hotly when l’atsy waved aside his interrup tion. “Perhaps some time I’ll brush up your education along those lines,” she encouraged him. “But right now—I do want to know why you are so rude. I really am ‘right smart curious’ on the subject — as my old mammy says. I never saw anything like in before! it Just doesn't see human.” "I go out and have a good time, don’t 1?” Jimmy Peyton, some what to his amazement, found him self explaining gruffly. “Not to do any little sunbeuin act or philan thropically brighten the atmos phere! Not on your life! They needn’t ask me to their old din ners if they don't like it. I,ord knows I’d enough sight rather they wouldn’t." "That's just the point—why do they?” Patsy asked him with sin cere bewilderment. “I'm sure if I were your hostess I'd never ask you more than once." A sudden thought awed her tone and round ed her eyes. “Are you by any chance famous?” she demanded breathlessly. "Do you do anything awfully worth while?” "Nothing but kill time and spend money.” he reassured her moodily, “and make more pr less of a damned idiot of myself most of the time." Patsy continued to transfix him with wide, mystified gray eyes. "But there must be a reason when they put up with you,” she insisted practically. "I)o tell me. If you don't I shall have to ask some one else.” • "O, I’d just as soon tell you my self.” There was a curious reck less bitterness in his young voice. "Perhaps I can explain it better by telling you they call me the Gold Brick—double compliment to hair and purse—also I believe a delicate tribute to my social assests. When you land me you are apt to be stung. I'm damnably rich, you see —got all kinds of money. That's the reason anyone would always put up with anything I might do." "Just for that?" asked Patsy in credulously. "That’s curious, isn't it? I’m learning so many new things tonight. You see, in the south we don't think just being rich so very important—the only really impor tant thing is for a man to be a gen tleman.” There were three men whose thoughts Mies Flower occupied quite extensively during the after dinner seance of cigars and mascu line conversation. Old Mr. Sturte vant's thin lips wore a smile of reminiscent pleasure, Tony Carris ford'e had lost for the moment their usual cynical curve, while Jimmy Peyton's grim young mouth was set in a straight line as he stared at the wall opposite with very blue eyes which from time to time blared lather alarmingly. Later, in the drawing room, Jim my Peyton hovered near Patsy with obvious impatience, ready at the first opportunity tf* -lash in and snatch her away. “Look here," he told her abruptly. Ills face almost as read as his hair, “I don't wonder you don't want to talk to me, but please do let me get this out of my system, won't you? 1 was mad as hops at first over what you said—and—well, I’ve been thinking it over—and—well, I wish you’d give me a chance to try to show you we can be gentlemen In the north, too. I'm more or leos of a spoiled pup myself, 1 know, but don't Judge everyone by me—any way, even I know better than that. My mother died when I was only 14 but she managed to teach me a few things.” • Mine died when I was 12," said Patsy, her voice and eyes suddenly very gentle. "And 1 wasn't so aw fully polite myself, come to think of it. I'm ever so sorry I was so ornery-” •'You were absolutely O. K.,” .Jimmy Peyton assured her roughly. "1 like a person who hits straight from the shoulder like that. I never saw a girl before who did.” "I have three brothers.” Patsy explained. From a long experience with unruly and penitent boys she plunged into more practical mat ters before any rebellious reaction from unaccustomed emotion could attack the remorseful Gold Brick. "About I^ady Belle,” she decreed, "you were certainly wrong about her grandsire.” After that it seemed only half an hour before Tony was snatching a reproachful 10-mlnute good-night with her in the sunroom. "No—no —you mustn't kiss mo,” she begged him, her young face a tumult of happy emotions. "Were not en gaged. you know. We’ve got to be sure first, Tony—ever and ever so sure." “I'm ever and ever so sure I’m going to thrash that Peyton cub if he monopolizes you again like that. Patsy—you little Georgia Witch—do you know you were the belle of the ball? What do you do to people?” Yi hatever she dul, there was no doubt that lq the next few days she had made a unique place for herself In the restless, emotion seeking, chronically bored gather ing at Braithewaite Lodge. Not the belle of the ball by any means; as Tony had said, people didn't toast Patsy, they just loved her; but rather as household mascot, con fident inchief, and, to her own astonishment, as prize entertainer. She was always obligingly willing to while away an empty hour from a versatile and unexpectedly suc cessful repertoire of darky lore; quaint tales inimitably told, melan choly religious ditties, amazing clogs, while her audience rocked with merriment and insatiably de manded oneores. Then, of course, was her zest of life—that greatest of gifts from the gods. Poor Mrs. Braithewaite! What mattered if Patsy knew noth ing of winter sports—had never be fore seen more than a shovelful of snow—when she could fling herself with so radiant an enthusiasm in to any new experience! Her intrepid and wobbling efforts at skates and skis meant more to her laughing companions than catalogs of expert knowledge. And then, of course, if any one were still inclined to ' be unduly superior, she could ride. "Lord, how she can ride," Jimmy Peyton boasted proudly. Patsy was still persisting in her new attitude towards her fiance _ holding him at arm's length de terminedly, meting his ardo with i formality half teasing, half wist ful, subjecting his invitations to the same rigid impartiality she showed the rest of the house party—with the exception of Jimmy. With him she was openly and delightedly "pals." That unwilling smile w-hich could so incredibly Illumine the Gold Brick's face was growing quite a frequent visitor these days; he even unearthed a boyish, Infectious laugh which proved very pleasant to hear. Impervious to snow and cold, he and his new mentor daily raced gloriously through the frosty blood whipping Adirondack air. Even bet ter than that, Jimmy liked the silent, glistening paths where they had to walk their horses guarded ly and where, amazedly, he found himself pouring out things he had never dreamed he could tell any one excepting that dead mother listening, too, with unexpected docility to Patsy's indignant rebut tal of the suspicious, hitter outlook 'on life his undisciplined, overin dulged boyhood had engendered. “Having a lot of money sure does bring you bump up against the shams of life,” he told Patsy. ‘'Some times It seems to me you're the only real person I've ever met.” “But you see everyone all wrong,” the girl protested. "All those delightful people up at the house, for instance—they aren’t shams.” “O, aren't they!” he laughed Take Mrs. Bralthewaite, to begin with! How'd yon ever come to visit her anyway—she's not your sort. Looks like an angel, doesn’t she? Talks like one. too. with that sugary voice of hers. Never in all her life did a single kind or decent thing that anyone's ever heard of. Treats her poor husband like a doormat—decent sort he is. too. He never has time even to show up at her parties, he’s working so hard, while she plays around every min ute with that tame cat of hers— Carrisford—he's always playing un der her foot. That kind of a thing makes me so sick.” "O!” Patsy flashed at him with a passion that left him breathless. "What hateful, cruel, wicked things you say! They aren’t true! I hate you for saying them!” An instant later, at Imminent risk of horse and life, she was tearing down the snowy path, a tense little figure with blazing eyes and trembling mouth. Peyton, thundering behind her sick with fear, managed at last to witch her bridle. “What the devil!” he exploded, passionately angry at his own emo tion. "Look here, Patsy, if you don't care a whoop for your own life, you might at least have an eye to Square Star’s. I'm rather fond of him.” "I’m sorry,” she choked contrite ly, "I ought to have thought of ldm. It's only—you did make me so angry.” “Why, Patsy,” he adjured her in bewilderment, “you aren't crying over any fool thing I said? What was I saying? O yes, about Mrs. Braithewaite and Carrisford! Well, they're a pair of tin angels—haloes as big as the moon, both of them, and I'm a plain nut. Does that suit you any better?” She managed then a little laugh at the boyish apology. "It’s all right,” she ended the matter briefly. "Only don't ever nay anything like that again to me. It's so unkind, so unfair — so dreadful—to think things like that about people. And they happen to be my own friends if they aren’t yours.” She flung a final shot over her shoulder. "If I felt that way about a person I cer tainly wouldn't visit her!" "I'd visit mighty few places, in this precious set of mine," he gave back, "explore that Interesting re gion just as soon as you go home. Don't understand how I've ne glected that part of my education so long.” She had managed to fling the horrid thought from her during the end of the ride, but it rushed In upon her again as soon ns they en tered the living room and she saw Tony leaning with indolent grace over the back of Mrs. Braithe waite’s chair. Alone in the luxurious rose and white bedroom, whose marvels still left her breathless, she forced the spectre in front of her and faced it with the steady courage her father had taught her. If any one had said that to her but Jimmy Pey ton—honest, blunt Jimmy, who with all his roughness and bitterness and lack of consideration, rang so true! She had thought It beneath notice when Alicia had hinted the same thing two days ago. This thing that Alicia had laugh ingly shrugged her shoulders over, that Jimmy had hurled his honest scorn against—was it possible that there could be anything so In credibly ugly in life? And if all the world cried It out against Tony was not that more triumphant test of her faith? She had championed hint fiercely enough to Jimmy, but here, alone In the silent room, it was the doubt In her own sick heart that terrified her. Mrs. Bralthewaite was also doing some very serious thinking. A preci ious week had dipped away and ground had so far only been lost in* stead of gained. Downstairs, when she had left, the major was hunt ing for Patsy, starting on his last evening a clamorous call for a prom ised repetition of Mammy’s famous matrimonial advice, beginning, "Chile, When you gits married be suah you picks a man wid a face v hat you likes—kase dey's all alike Inside.” The subdued, gauche little outsider Mrs. Bralthewaite had so confident ly mocker! her unbearably In those friendly laughing appeals for the Tallahala Duse” sent up from be low. The situation was intolerable, she told herself passionately. In her blackest imaginings she had never pictured such a fiasco as this; the absurd interest the Sturtevants, of all people, had taken In the girl driving day after day across tha trail to make her ponderous visit*; the Intimacy Alicia Van Sittart ac corded her; the amused admiration of the major; the Gold Brick * frank M'ontinncd « Page Sere*.)