The Ocala evening star. [volume] (Ocala, Fla.) 1895-1943, 1912-08-05

world a hundred years and not under
stand you. There's Della Ryan, for
example, the brainiest woman l know,
could give most men cards and spades
and beat 'em hands down. Last night
at Rocky Bar they were telling me
that she's written to the operator there
and told him she'll get him a posi-
ton here in the Atlantic and Pacific
Cable Company, in which she's large
stakeholder, that1l double his salary
and give him a chance he'd never
have got in this world. She wants to
| pay off a mortgage on a ranch Perley
has in the Sacramento Valley and
she's sent Mrs. Perley a check for
| five hundred dollars. She's offered
Willoughby a first-rate job on the Red
| Calumet group of mines near Sonora
| in which Con had a controlling inter-
| est, and she's written to the doctor to
come down and become one Of the
house physicians of the st. Filomena
| Hospital, which she practically runs.
| She's ready to do all this because of
what they did for Dominick, and yet
| she, his own mother, won't give the
boy cent and keeps him on starva-
ton wages, just because she wants to
| spite his wife"
He looked at his daughter across
| the table with narrowed eyes. What
| have you got to say for yourself after
that, young woman?" he demanded.
Rose had evidently nothing to say.
| She raised her eyebrows and shook
her head by way of reply. Her face,
in the food Of lamplight, looked pale
and tired. She was evidently distract
and depressed; a very different-look-
| ing Rose from the girl he had taken
| away with him four weeks earlier.
He regarded her for an anxiously-con-
templative moment and then said:
| Whats the matter? Seems to me
you look sort'er peaked"
"I?" she queried with a surprised
start. why, I'm quite we'll"
Wells you were before you went
up to the mines?"
A color came into her cheeks and
she lowered her eyes:
I'm a little tired, think, and that
always makes me look pale. 1t was
a hard sort of trip, all those hours in
the sleigh, and that hotel at Rocky
Bar was a dreadful place. l couldn't
| sleep. There was a COW somewhere
near-it sounded as If it were in the
next room-and the roosters all be-
gan to crow in the middle of the night.
I'll be all right tomorrow"
. Her father drew his coffee-cup
| 70 rI nd IN op
sugar. No word had passed between
him and his daughter as to the scene
he had witnessed two days before in
the parlor of Perley's Hotel. She was
ignorant Of the fact that he had seen
it and he intended that she should re-
main ignorant of ii. But the next
morning he had had an interview with
Dominick Ryan, in which the young
man, confronted with angry questions
and goaded past reserve by shame and
. pain, had confessed the misery Of his
marriage and the love that in an un.
guarded moment had slipped beyond
} his control
) Cannon had said little to him. Be
yond telling him that he must not
) see Miss Cannon again, his comments
on Dominick's confessions had been
; brief and non-committal. 1t was not
his business to preach to Della Ry.
; ans boy, and large experience OF
men had given him a practically linn
; itless tolerance Of any and all lapses
. Of which the human animal is capable
; They only concerned him as they bore
. on his own affairs. In this particular
case they did bear on his affairs, close
ly and Importantly, on the affair OF
all others dearest and nearest to him
the happiness Of his daughter. He
knew that in this three weeks Of i'm
prisonment she had come to feel fol
Dominick Ryan a sentiment she had
never before felt for any man. He
had seen her in the young mans
arms, and, knowing Rose as he knew
her, that was enough.
Driving down from Antelope in the
sleigh he thought about 1t hard, hard
er than he had ever before in his life
thought Of any sentimental compiled
ton. He was enraged-coldly and
grimly enraged-that his girl should
have stumbled into such a pitfall But
1t was not his habit to waste time and
force in the indulgence of profitless
anger. The thing had happened
Rose, who had been courted many
times and never warmed TO more thar
pity for her unsuccessful suitors. had
suddenly, by fateful, unprecedented
chance, met her mate-the man she
loved. And the most maddening part
of it was that he was the man Of al
others her father would have chosen
for her had such a choice been pos
sible.
He bit on his cigar, turning It over
between his teeth, and looked side
wise at her as she sat silent in the
sleigh beside him. She was unques
tionably pale, pale and listless, heI
body wrapped in enveloping furs, sunk
in an attitude OF WEAKNESS, her eyes
full of detected reverie. Even to his
blindly-groping, masculine perceptions
! her distract looks. her dispirited ST
lence, told of melancholy preoccupa
ton. She was not happy-his Rose
who. If she had wanted it and he could
have bought, begged or stolen It
would have had the moon.
? Tonight, in her white dress, the
mellow radiance of the lamp throw
, Ing out her figure against the shadowy
, richness of the dining-room walls. she
bore the same appearance OF despon
dency. Her luster was dimmed, hel