Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1902-06-19

seen that in a far-away corner Read
ing Payne and his wife formed part
of a group whose most conspicuous
figure, q stout man of about 60, had
put on his glasses to look at her.
And she read in the professors
small, gray eyes the proposal that
she had a vague desire to postpone,
for she felt that he would not be
satisfied with less than a categorical
yes or no, and she was not prepared
to give either. When he asked her to
sit out a dance with him and she de-
clined he was not discouraged, for
he knew her we'll enough to realize
that, even to accept an offer, she
would not consent to leave the lime
light for so long.
From time to time as she danced
she cast furtive glances at the Payne
party, and saw that the stout, gray
haired man was still looking at her.
And she WOE Tered who he could be.
The other members of the group had
gradually drifted away, and he stood
in apparent earnest conversation
with Mr.. and Mrs. Payne. Suddenly
came a swift impression that they
spoke of her. She saw Payne glance
furtively in her direction, and move
his head in a scarcely p~erceptible
%negation.
Then the waltz absorbed her, and
when she looked again in their di-
rection the politician and his wife
had disappeared. But their friend
was talking with an old gentleman
she knew, and she was not at all sur
prised, when. after a few moments,
the couple moved toward her. AS
they approached her slim figure
stiffened with hostility, she was not
disposed to be overcivil to any friend
of the Reading Paynes. Her mouth
hardened into an expression of al
most insolent Indifference.
"Miss Coles" said her friend, with
smiling benevolence, may I intro
duce Mr.. Longstreth?"
She quivered, breathless with
establishment at the name; then
suddenly an idea smote her with in
slant, overwhelming force, for she
had never handled an idea before and
was quite unprepared for the re-
coil. But the next moment she broke
into a smile, so lovely that the pro-
fessor, staring at her over his part
ner's shoulders, wondered why he
had never noticed her dimples be-
fore, while the old millionaire, who
had braved a family difference to
make her acquaintance, felt in its
sudden radiance the renewal of his
youth.
For the rest Of the evening Miss
Coles had but a vague idea Of her sur
r%oundings. She talked she hardly
knew what, but she felt that her re-
marks, however childish, were re-
ceived with an appreciative Difference
no other man had ever given them.
Within a week she had received her
first call from Mr.. Longstreth, and
so much had her wits been sharpened
by the subtle instinct for revenge
that she, who had received a score
of younger men alone, never saw him
except in her mothers presence.
Indeed, Mrs. Coles, with more or less
excusable vanity, oon began to won
der if she, instead of her immature
daughter, were not the object of his
visits.
In a month Reading Payne, trem
blingly alive to the situation, gave his
father-in-law a pressing invitation
to accompany him on a long catching
cruise, and when, somewhat to his
surprise, the invitation was accepted,
his relief was fortunately unmodi.
fed by the knowledge that Miss
Coles wore the millionaire's tlowera
daily during his absence. But thu
separation served to crystalize an
idea that had long been forming in
Mr.. Longstreth's mind. His youth
and extreme poverty, concluding
with a marriage to n bloodless wo'
man, whose $4,000 had launched tho
patent medicine into fame, had not
initiated him into those keener pleas
ures of life which, in his practically
inexperienced Judgment, a union with
Miss Coles seemed to promise.
And he did not consider that any
injury to Reading Payne's prospects
should weigh with him for a moment.
He knew, of course, that the politi-
clan confidently expected to become,
indirectly, his heir, and when he had
proposed to and been accepted by
Miss Coles, in the midst of his pleas
uers as iance of Il young and beauti-
full girl was a lurking sense of hav-
ing gotten the better of his son-in-
law that only served to complete his
felicity.
Yet he was not more ~radiantly
pleased than Elizabeth, who felt for
the man who had thus enabled her
to crafty her supremest passion, an
intensity of gratitude that was per-
haps as much like love as she could
have been made to feel.
The happiest moment of herlife was
not that which brought her to the
altar a self-possessed and s~ingularly
handsome bride, but that which came
a year later, when, profiting by the
surface friendliness her defeated
enemy professed, she held up for Mr..
Payne's inspection her first-born,
that bore her fathers name.
Mr.. Longstreth has never regretted
his second marriage. Elizabeth salts
fies him completely, for he likes a
strident note in everything, from red
ties or plaid socks to his wife. And
it is just this touch of yulgarity-this
hint of the onion. as it were-that
b - H.. -.,.-a. NT.,, T.,,,u,1,oJl A. 70