The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1910-11-19
The EVENING STORY
Wealth Comes in at the Door.
by Marion NJ. Walters


me, please. refuse to go on the wait
ing list-it is too long already"
Barclay flushed vtsibly. Il hate rid
dies. Please explain" he entreated
plaintively.
Ada laughed softly. "Actually-you
bear a conscience in spite of every
thing she said. ''Or rather half a
conscience-your face admits what your
lips deny"
Il don't in the least understand"
Barclay murmured. then tried adroitly
to talk of something else
Ada shook her head at him. Little
pitchers have big ears she said. Tiny
was in the library while you talked
with her big brother-she came to me
with eyes of wonder to ask what a
waiting list was"
What did you tell herr" Barclay
interrupted, with a sickly grin.
ooh! That it was a charm-string,
but made up of girls, not buttons"
know about arm-strings-we all had
them back in the dark ages when
was a brat"
You forget that boy is another name
for ignorance Barclay answered.
Thank you, though, for enlight-
mo need" Ada interrupted, going on
remorselessly. Instead, tell me all
about this waiting list. AS I under
stand now, it is made up of half a
QOZen girls you mean 10 make love 10,
after you finish the affair with Mabel
Brough.'
Il am ignorant, still too wise to
contradict a lady. If her mind is made
up to anything 1 accept is as a fact
for the time being" Barclay said with
his grandest air.
There was mockery in the grandeur
it made Ada angrier than all that
had gone before. Out of her anger was
born purpose-to captivate this self
satisfied. vain creature, whom here
tofore she had disdained. So she mask
ed her wrath under her brightest smile
and began to talk, gayly, brightly. of
affairs in their summer world.
Barclay was grateful-he hated any
cloud in the emotional sky. And
really if Miss Ada Noon had chosen to
do it she might have made him I'M
comfortable. She had attracted him
in way, from the very first, but there
was Mabel on his hands, a beauty, q
belle, past mistress also of the fine art
of flirting. and there were the others
Alice Ewell, Jenny Ware, Cora Linton
several more-he had thought, and
even said, they would have their turn.
He was a connoisseur in beauty, in
fascination. Marrying was for him out
of the question-he had never cared
enough for any one woman to make
other-and still others. A tempera-
ment of that sort was the dynamite for
married happiness. Women had spoiled
him from the era of rounda bouts, yet
he had somehow sense that there
were those of the sex who would not
put up with philanderings. A sixth
sense had told him early in the game
that Ada Noon was that sort.
Notwithstanding, he had not been
able to resist the temptation of max
ing half-Iove to her-they were out in
the Bretons' adorable garden, gay with
September's riot of color, sweet with
September's wonderful roses. Ada in
her leaf green frock, touched with gold
and slashed with dull scarlet, fitted
into the picture. He had told her SO,
adding something of his desire to keep
the picture forever. She had prompt
ly taken him up, and shown him
where he stood with her.
Barclay was not conceited beyond
the masculine normal-but it is not in
the sex to rest easy under misprison.
What wonder then that he set to work,
delicately but Enthusiastically, to show
his Lady Disdain, how little ground
her disdain had? He no longer made
love to her with his eyes-in fact, he
Mrs Breton, Tiny and Bob's grand
mother, a grandee dame, adorably
young at seventy.
Mabel Brough was plainly piqued,
as plainly puzzled. AS the others-the
waiting list-they went their happy
sometime designation. Bob's class
came and went in procession of the
perfect, also the imperfect, but one
that made the house gay every min
others by five years-Bob had been his
adoring flag at school, and no later
friend had ever superseded.
He had placed Ada Noon as Mrs.
Breton's protege, in spite of the fact
that her frocks had always a touch of
"a cd 7lnCf
ornaments, but they always became
her wonderfully-her string of big
coral beads, for example, accented
wonderfully the soft curves of her
neck.
Looking at the beads, Barclay
caught himself wondering how certain
red rubies, in his family strong box,
would look in their place. The specu-
lation startled hint was wholly new.
Could he be really falling in love? And
with a girl to whom he was evidently
no more than part of the landscape?
He asked himself the question. wrath
fully Then he went off for a long
day alone At the end of it he knew.
Ada Noon had come to mean some
thing more than the rest of the world
to him He meant to marry her,
whether or no. 1t pleased him to
think her face was her fortune-rath
er her pretty wit, her poised and
charming personality. His mother
would make a scene of course-now
for years she had been impressing it
upon him that, being rich. he must
marry money in order to be richer.
One needed to grow in the grace of
wealth, she thought-and active bust
ness ventures meant risk Just two
things were safe-matrimony and
economy She hated economy-it is
hard. on eighty thousand a year-so
she was as eager to have her son be-
stow himself properly as he had been
loath to do it.
He said nothing of all that when he