The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1911-11-20

 on either Cn>--.. ana ner eyes were very bright. Daunt stood still, feasting his gaze. He started when Patricia's fan tapped him arm.
 "You're frightfully late," she said as her partner, the German charge, bow ed himself away. Father will give you a wigging if you don't look out''
 "I saw him 8 few moments ago." he answered 'He didn't seem very fierce"
 "Was he still looking at those spooky curios? I can't see what anybody wants such things for. I always feel like saying what Mark Twain's man said when they showed him the num- my: If you've got any nice fresh corpse trot him out"
 Daunt's smile was a mechanism. She knew that he had ceased to listen As she looked at his side face with her clear, kind eyes a shadow came to her own. Her loyal heart was trou- bled.
 After her drive that afternoon Bar bara had kept her room on the plea of rest for the evening. She had not come down to dinner and had appear ed only at the moment of starting. At the first glance, then, Patricia had noticed the change. The Barbara she had always known, of flashing im- pulses and girlish graces, was gone. The Barbara of the evening had seem- ed suddenly older, of even rarer beau r,,,k II~s ,Y, tachment, of unfamiIiarity. Riding beside her to the ball, Patricia had felt under the eager, brilliant gayety this chilly sense of arrangement, and 1t had puzzled her. Later she had come to connect it with the man of whose coming Barbara had told her, the man with handsome bearded face who had seemed since his greeting in the moment of their entrance to take unobtrusive yet assured possession of such of her moments as were not giv- en to the great. Wirhal he had lent this an air of the natural and habitua' which, nicely poised and complete. Z conventional as it was, seemed to convey a subtle atmosphere of pro.
 prietorship. So now as, she saw
 Daunt's gaze Patricia was little sad
 There had fallen silence between
 them, which he broke with sudden exclamation.
 "No wonder" he said. 'eef.
 aNo wonder what?'
 'sThat she is a success
 Success! I should think so. She's
 I,oC T Prince Hojo sat out two numbers with her. Just look at the mer around heI now"
 The music had drifted into waltz
 and the group about Barbara was dis solving. A dark face was bending near. It's owner put his arm about
 her, and they glided into the throng Ware, like all heavy men, danced per fectly, and, the pair seemed to skim the mirroring floor as easily as swal lows, her red bronze hair, caught un der web of seed pearls, glowing like a net of f1refies. Heads turned back over white shoulders, and on the edges of the room people whispered as they passed. Floating lightly as sea foam, the shimmering gown drew near, passing so close that Daunt could have touched it. The lovely white face, over her partners shoul der, met Daunt's. For a fraction of 6 second Barbara's. eyes looked into his then swept by as if he had been emp ty air. It was as if a clinched hand had struck him across the face. He whitened. Patricia felt a sudden sting in her eyelids. She slipped hel hand through his arm and, saying something about the heat-it was de liciously cool-drew him down the cor ridor She chatted on airily, fighting desire to cry. But when they came to the entrance of the cherry blooms he had not spoken a word.
 "I see mother still in the spook
 room," she said. "I must go back tc her-no, please don't come with me Thank you so much for bringing me so far.' She left him with nod and bright smile that he did not see. He sat down on bench in it's farthest corner What did it mean? Why, it had been like the cut direct! From her? I'm possible! She had not seen him. Hs 1 had been mistaken. He would go te
 her now. He sprang up.
 Gro Be Continued.) Many black velvet hats are trimme