Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1906-08-22
THE
GRAFTERS
By
F r AN CTS Lynn DE
. Copyright. 1904, by The Bobbs-MerriII Coz V
CHAPTER XXIX.-CoNrrSuED.

L ~
Because | shouldn't be able to
realize single one of your ideals.
know what they are-what you will
expect in wife | could make you
rich man, a successful man, as the
world measures success, and perhaps
l could even give you love: after the
first flush of youth is past, the heaven
ly-aftinity sentiment loses it's hold
and a woman comes to know that if
she cares to try hard enough she can
love any man who will be thoughtful
and gentle, and whose habits of life are
not hopelessly at war with her own.
But that kind of love doesn't breed
love. Your vanity would pique itself
for little while, and then you would
know the curse of unsought love and
murder me in your heart a thousand
times day. No, David, l have read
you to little purpose if these are the
things you will ask of the woman who
takes your name and becomes the
mother OF your children" She had
risen and was standing beside his
chair, with her hand lightly touching
his shoulder. will you go now?
There are others coming, and"
He made his adieux gravely and
went away half dazed and a prey to
many emotions, but strangely light
hearted withal: and as once before, he
walked when he might have ridden.
But the mixed-emotion mood was not
immortal. At the Clarendon he found
committee of Civic leaguers waiting
TO ask him if he would stand as a
good government" candidate in the
special election to fill the house va
cancy in the capital district; and in
the discussion of ways and means, and
the setting of political pins which fol-
lowed there was little food for senti-
ment.
Ii was three weeks and more after
Gov. Marston's call summoning the
assembly for an investigative session.
Kent had fought his way triumphant
ly through the special election to a
seat in the house, aided and abetted
manfully by Ormsby, Hildreth and the
entire Trans Western influence and
vote. And now men were beginning
to say that without the tireless blows
OF the keen-witted. sharp-tongued
young corporation lawyer, the junto
might still have reasserted itself
But the house committee, of which
Kent was the youngest member and
the chairman, had proved incorrupti-
BILE, and the day of the CASTOR wolf
pack was over. Hendricks resigned,
to escape worse thing; Meigs came
over to the majority with a show of
heartiness that made Kent doubly
watchful of him; heads fell to the
right and left, until at the last there
was left only one member of the orig
inal cabal to reckon with; the judi
cial tool of the capitol ring.
Kent had hesitated when MacFar-
lanes name came up; and the Judge
never knew that he owed his escape
from the inquisitorial house commit
tee. and his permission TO resign on
the Plea of broken health, to a young
woman whom he had never SEEN
1t was Elinor Brentwood who was
his intercessor; and the occasion was
the last day of the third week of the
extra session-a Saturday afternoon
and legislative recess when Kent
had borrowed Ormsby's auto-car. and
had driven Elinor and Penelope out
to Pentland place to look at a house
he was thinking of buying. For with
means to indulge it, Kent's CASTOR
bred mania for plunging in real estate
had returned upon him with all the
acuteness of half-satisfed passion
They had gone all over the house
and grounds with the caretaker, and
when there was nothing more to see
Penelope had prevailed on the woman
TO open the yenetians in the music
room. There was grand piano in
she place OF honor. presided over by