The Hays free press. [volume] (Hays, Kan.) 1908-1924, 1915-04-10
CHAPTER Il.

Various Ways of Receiving q Blow.
James Brood's home was a remark
able one. That portion Of the house
which rightly may be described as
public" in order to distinguish it
from other parts where privacy was
enforced, was not unlike any OF the
richly furnished, old fashioned Tlaces
in the lower part of the city, where
there are still traces left of the Knick-
erbockers and their times. This was
not the home of men who had been
merely rich; it vas not wealth alone
| that stood behind these stately invest
ments
! At the top of the house were the
rooms which no one entered except by
| the gracious will of the master. Here
James Brood had stored the quaint,
! priceless treasures of his own peculiar
fancy-exquisite, curious things from
the mystic East, things that are not
to be bought and sold but come only
to the hand Of him who searches in
lands where peril is the price.
Worlds separated the upper and
lower regions of that fine old house;
/
Occident into the very heart Of the
Orient; a narrow threshold was the
line between the rugged West and the
soft, dangerous, seductive East In
this part of the house, James Brood,
when at home for one of his brief
stays, spent many of his hours in Sc
clusion, shut OF from the rest of the
establishment as completely as if he
were the inhabitant of another world.
Attended by his Hindu servant,
silent man named Raniab, and on &C
casions by his secretary, he saw but
little of the remaining members Of
his rather extensive household. For
several years he had been engaged in
the task of writing his memoirs
called-in so far as they related to his
experiences and researches of the past
twenty years.
His secretary and amanuensis was
Lydia Desmond, the nineteen-year-old
daughter of his one-time companion
and friend, the late John Desmond,
whose death occurred when the girl
was barely ten years Of age.
Brood, on hearing Of the mans
death, Immediately made inquiries con-
corning the condition in which he had
left his wife and child, with the result
that Mrs. Desmond was installed as
housekeeper in the New York house
and the daughter given every advan-
tage in the way of education. Des-
mond had left nothing in the shape of
riches except undiminished love for
his wife and diary kept during those
perilous days before he met and mar
ried her. This diary was being incor-
porated in the history of James
Brood's adventures, by consent of the
widow, and was to speak for Brood
in words he could not with modesty
! utter for himself. In these pages John
Desmond was to tell his own story, in
! his own way, for Brood's love for his
friend was broad enough even to ad-
Unit of that He was to share his life
in retrospect with Desmond and the
: two old men as he had shared it with
them in reality.
. Lydia's room, adjoining her moth
er's, was on the third floor at the foot
Of the small stairway leading up to
the prescribed retreat at the top OF
!. the house. There was a small sitting
r room of the two bed chambers, given
daughter. In this little room, Frederic
. Brood spent many quiet, happy hour
The Desmonds, mother and daughter
: understood and pitied the lonely boy
2 who came to the big house soon after
2 they were themselves installed. His
: heart, which had many sores, expand
r ed and gIoWed in the warmth of thei1
l kindness and affection; the plague OF
d unfriendliness that was his by absorb
g ton gave way before this unexpected
kindness, not Immediately, it is true
K but completely in the end.
e By nature he was slow to respond
to the advances of others; his life had
- been such that avarice accounted fol
a all that he received from others in the
> shape of respect and consideration
He was prone to discount a friendly
attitude for the simple reason that IL
his experience all friendships were
J. marred by the fact that their sincerit,
rested entirely upon the generosity o
g the man who paid for them-his IA
e Their. No one had loved him for him
} self; no one had given him an unself
e ish thought in all the years OF hi
s boyhood-
AT ne nOlO a1OOI ITOu
, the Desmonds; he was slow to SUI
render. He suspected them OF TIL
g same motives that had been the basil
of all previous attachments When a
d last he realized that they were no
like the Sthers, his cup of Joy, LON
T an empty vessel, was filed to the brfn
e and his happiness was without bounds
G. They were amazed by the transforms
d ton. The rather sulIen, unapproach
g able lad became at once so frfendly
y so dependent, that had they not beel
n acquainted with the causes behind tn
IS old state of reticence, his very 10
e might have made a nuisance of hin
it He followed Mrs. Desmond about Il
c very much the same spirit that IL
8 spires hungry dog; he watched he
with eager, half-famished eyes; b
% was on her heels four-hfths of tn
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