Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1907-02-15
CHAPTER XXI.

Frances Gamblers fingers trembled lit
tie at the Guiford Office desk as she took
out her card and penciled beneath her name:
Representing the Morning Journal"
She knew that Sunset Bryan's success on
the circuit, his midnight prodigalities. his
bewildering lavishness of life, and his prof.
ected departure for New Orleans. had al
ready brought the reporters buzzing about
his apartments. Even as she lifted the blot
ter to dry the line she had written with such
craven boldness. her eye fell on we'll
thumbed card before her, bearing the IN
Scription.
ALBERT ERIC SPAULDING
The Sunday Sun.
\ moment later she had it in her white
gloved hand, with her own card discreely
hidden away, and in the most matter-of-
fact of voices she was asking the busy clerk
behind the desk if she could see Mr.. Bryan.
Mr.. Bryan is very late riser he ex-
planned.
Il know that" she answered coolly, but
he's expecting me- l think
The clerk looked at her. he stamped
the card, and he continued to look at her,
stud!ously and yet quizzically, as bell
boy led her back to the elevator. Sunset
Bryan and the type of men he stood for, the
puzzled clerk knew well enough; but this
type of woman he did not know. Sunset,
obviously. was branching out
"You needn't bother to waltz she said to
the youth who had touched the electric but
ton beside the great, high-paneled door OF
the apartment.
She stood there quietly until the boy had
turned a corner in the hallway; then she
boldly opened the door and stepped inside.
The big. manymirrored. crmson-carpeted
room was empty, but from an inner room
came the climbing of chopped ice against
glass and the hiss of settler siphon., The
race-,rack king was evidently about to take
his morning pck-me-up. heavy odOr of
stale cigar-smoke filled the place. She Won
dered what the next step would be.
Hello. there Allie, old boy!' the gam
blers offhand and surprisingly genial bass
voice called out as he heard the door close
sharply behind Frances
That must mean. thought the alert but
frightened girl, that Albert Eric Spauldng
and the plunger were old friends. Once
more the siphon Missed and spat and the
ice clinked against the thin glass. Here
was a predicament.
"Hello" answered the woman. at last.
Steeling herself into careless buoyancy of
tone ill-suited to the fear-dilated pupils Of
her eyes.
She heard a muffied but startled Good
God!' echo from the inner room. mo-
ment later the doorway was blocked by
the shadow of huge figure. and she knew
that she was being peered at by pair of
small wolfish eyes. coldly challenging as
they were audaciOus.
She looked nervously at he- eloved hands,
at the little handkerchief she was tortur-
ing between her slightly shaking fingers.
Her gloves. she noticed were stained here
and there with perspiration.
If she had not already passed through her
Christening ordeal with a half-drunken Eng
lish butler. and if the shock of that unto
ward experience had not in some way be-
numbed and hardened her shrinking woman
hood. she felt that she would have screamed
aloud and then incontnently fed-in the
very face of those grim and countless reso-
buttons with which she had kolstered up a
dropping courage. 1t flashed through her,
with the lShtning-like rapidity of thong 1t
honest career she had been str NICELY shell
tered from the coarSer brutalities of life.
She had always skrunk from the unclean
and the unlovely. If she had not always
been honest. she had at least always been
honorable. Durkin. from the first, had rec
ognizcd and respected this inner and better