Newark evening star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1909-1916, 1913-08-01
looked down at his supple white fng-
Copyright by Bobbs-Merrill Co.


chair facing the window. The night
was balmy and he looked down across
| the darker sea of reefs, barred ike
gigantic checker board by the shin
| ing lines of streets, to where the flash
| ing electric signs of the theatre dis
trict laid their wide swath of colored
radiance. The manifold calls of the
street and the buzz of trolleys made
a dull tonal background, subdued and
far-away.
! To be outsidel All that light and
color and comfort and pleasure would
hum and sparkle on just the same,
| though he was no longer within the
circle of it's effulgence-slaving, per-
haps, he thought with a twisted smile,
at some tawdry occupation that called
for no experience, to pay for meal
/ in some second-rate restaurant and a
pallet in some shabby genteel, hall
| bedroom, till his clothes were replaced
| by ill-fitting .hand-me-downs"- Still
/ by wretched gradations he arrived
| finally at the status of the dime seat
in the gallery and five-cent cigars!
| There was one way back. 1t lay
| through the haclineyed gateway of
marriage. Youth, comeliness and fine
| linen, in the world he knew, were a
fair exchange for wealth any day.
| Outlet for cutlet"-the satiric phrase
ran through his mind. Why not?
Others did so. And as for himself, ii
perhaps need be no question of plain
and spinstered millions-there was
Katharine Fargo!
| He had known her since a time
when she bestrode a small fuzzy pony
in the park, cool as grapefruit and
with a critical eye, even in her ten
years, for social forms and observ-
! ances. In the intervals of fashionable
boarding schools he had seen her de-
velop, beautiful, cold, stately and
correct. The Fargo fortune
thanks to modern journalism,
which was fond of stating that il thC
steel rails of the Fargo railways were
Set end to end, the chain would reach
from the earth to the planet Saturn
or Observation-Disclosures as familiar tc
the public imagination as Caruso OF
| the Hope diamond. And the daugh-
ter Katharine had not lacked admir-.
ers; shop-girls knew the scalps that
dangled from her girdle. But in his
heart John Valiant was aware, by
those subtle signs which men anc
women alike distinguish, that while
Katharine Fargo loved first and fore
most only her own wonderful per-
son, he had been an easy second in
her regard
He remembered the last Christmas
house-party at the Fargos' ptace on
the st. Lawrence. Its habitues lrrev-
erently dubbed this THE Shack" but
it was the nursing of folk who took
their camping luxuriously, in a pala-
tial structure which, though built, rs
to its exterior, of logs, was equipped
within with Turkish bath, billiard
room and the most interchangeable Chef
west of st. Petersburg. The evening
before his hosts swift motor had
hooted him off to the station, as its
wide hall exhaled the bouquet of af-
ter-dinner cigars, he had looked al
her standing in the wide doorway, 9
rare, exquisite creature-her face fore.
! shortened and touched to a borrowed
tenderness by the fiickering glow OF
the burning logs in the room behint
the perfect flower, he had thought
of the civilization in which he lived
John Valiant looked down at the
bulldog squatted on the floor, his
| eyes shining in the dimness A little
hot ripple had run over him. ''Not
on your life, Chum!" he said. INC
shameless barter! There must be
other things besides money and socia'
position in this doddering old world
after all!'
The dog whined with delight at the
voice and jumped up to lick the
strong tense hand held down to him
do you know. old chap" his master
continued, I've been handing myself
a collection of cold marble truths in
| the last few weeks? I've been the
prize dolt of tho whole show, and you
ought to have thrown me over LONG
ago. You've probably realized it all
along, but it has never dawned on
me until lately. I've worn the blue
ribbon so long I'd come to think il
was a decoration. All my life I've
| DSeu just inOlueF Oh those Well-lneal
ing, brainless young idiots who have
never done a blessed thing that's The
| slightest value to anybody else
| Well, Chum, we're through We're
going to begin doing something for
ourselves, if it's only raising cab
bages! And we're going to stand ii
without any baby -aching-the nurse
never held our noses when we took
! our castor-oili"
1t was folded down, that Did
bright page. FINS had been writtel
| to the rose-colored chapter. And
even as he told himself, he was con-
scious of a new rugged something
that had been slowly dawning within
him, a sense of courage, even of zest,
and furious hatred of the self-pity
that had wrenched him even for a
moment
He turned from the window, picked
up his letters, and, followed by the