Waterbury evening Democrat., 1907-02-18

CT sins had been set before Eugene in detail. in mass and in all of their depth, breadth and thickness. His father spoke but once after nodding heavily to con firm all points of Mrs. Louden's re cital.
 You better use any influence you've got with your brother" he said to Flu gene, ito make him come to time. l can't do anything with him. If he gets in trouble, he needn't come to me! I'll never help him again. I'm tired of itv'
 Joe's movements throughout the ear Her part of that evening are of uncer- tain report. It is known that he made a partial payment of 45 cents at sec ondhand book store for a number of volumes, "Grindstaff on Torts' and some others, which he had negotiated on the installment system. It Is also believed that he won 2S cents playing seven-up in the little room behind Louie Farbach's bar. but these things are of little import compared to the established fact that at Il o'clock he was one of the ball guests at the Pike mansion. He took no active part in the festivities, nor was he one of the dancers. His was, on the contrary, the role of a quiet observer. He lay stretched at full length upon the floor of the inclosed porch-one of the strips of canvas was later found to have been loosened-wedged between the outer railing and row of palms ill green tubs.
 It was not to play eavesdropper that the uninyited Joe had come. He was not there to listen, and 1t is possible that had the curtains of other windows afforded him the chance to behold the dance he might not have risked the dangers of his present position. He had not the slightest interest in the whispered coquetries that he heard. He watched only to catch now and then over the shoulders of the dancers a fitful glimpse of pretty head that fitted across the window-the amber hair of Mamie Pike. He shivered in the drafts, and the floor of the porch was cement, painful to elbow and i knee. the space where he lay cramped and narrow, but the golden bubbles of her hair, the simmer of her dainty pink dress and the fluffy wave of her l lace scarf as she crossed and recrossed in a waltz left him apparently in nc discontent. He watched with parted lips, his pale cheeks reckoning when ever those fair glimpses were his. Al last she came out to the yeranda with Eugene and sat upon little divan, SC close to Joe that. daring wildly in the shadow, he reached out trembling hand and let his fingers rest upon the end of her scarf. which had faller from her shoulders and touched tht floor. She sat with her back to him
 as did Eugene.
 "You have changed, think, since
 last summer" he heard her say refec
 lively.
 "For the worse, ma cherie?" Joe!
 expression might have been worth see
 ing when Eugene said ma cherie," fo
 1t was known in the Louden household
 that MT. Bantry had failed to pass hi
 examination in the French language. "No," she answered. But you hav'
 seen so much and accomplished s
 much since then. You have become 8
 polished and SOL She paused am
 then continued: But perhaps I'd bet
 ter not say it. You might be offended.
 "No. I want you to say it," he re
 turned confidently, and his con1denc was fully justified. for she said:
 "well, then, I mean that you hay
 become so thoroughly man of tn
 world. Now I've said 1t! You are oi tended, aren't you?"
 Not at all; not at all," replied MI
 Bantry, preventing by masterful el
 fort his pleasure from showing in hi face.
 "Then I'm-glad," she whispered, an
 Joe saw his stepbrother touch ht
 hand, but she rose quickly. There the music" she cried happily. Its waltz, and it's yours"
 Joe heard her little high heels tal ping gayly toward the window. follow ed by the heavier tread of Eugene, b' |. he did not watch them go.
 He lay on his back, with the han that had touched Mamie's scarf pres , ed across his closed eyes.
 The music of the waltz was of tl
 old fashioned swingingly sorrowf sort, and 1t would be hard to say ho long it was after that before he cou hear the air played without recurren'
 of the bitterness of that moment. III rhythmical pathos of the violins vi in such accord with faint sound 1, weeping which he heard near hi . presently that for little while he | , lieved this sound to be part of the m
 sic and part of himself. Then it | :. came more distinct. and he raised hil self on one elbow to look about. !, Very close to him, sitting upon t . divan In the shadow. was girl wes . ing a dress of beautiful silk. She W . crying softly, her face in her hands. . CHAPTER ". Q n REEL had worked all the aft, u A noon over her mothers ws