Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1917-05-31
Copyright BY Chas. Scribner's Sons
CHAPTER
Bank Cashier and Society Man.

It was ten minutes of eight when j.
Montague Smith had driven his run
about to its garage and was fastening
across to his suite of bachelor apart
ments in the Kincaid terrace. There
was reason for the haste. It was his
regular evening for calling upon Miss
Verda Richlander and time pressed.
The provincial beatitudes had chosen
a fit subject for their illustration in
the young cashier of the Lawrence
vile Bank and Trust. From his earliest
rpcollections Montague Smith had lived
the life Of the well-behaVed and the
conventional. He had his niche in the
LawrenceviIle social structure, and an
other In the small-city business world
and he filed both to his own Satisfac
ton and to the admiration of all anC
Sundry. Ambitions, other than to take
promotions in the bank as they came to
him. and, eventually, to make money
enough to satisfy the demands which
Josiah Richlander might make upon
prospective SOn-in-law, had never trOu-
bled him. An extremely well-balanced
young man his fellow tOWnsmen called
him, one of whom it might safely be
predicted that he would go straightfOr-
wardIy on his way to reputable middle
life and old age moderate In all things,
impulsive in none.
Even in the affair with Miss Ptch-
lander sound common sense and sober
second thought had been made to
stand in the room of SuperSentiment.
Smith did not know what it was to be
violently in love; though he was
charter member of the LaWrenceyille
Athletic club and took q certain pride
In keeping himself physically fit and up
to the mark, it was not his habit to be
violent In anything. Lawrenceville
clu ed it's young men and young
ro 70 marry and "settle down."
rnnta@ue Smith, figuring in a
way as a leader in the Law
youngest set, was far too
to break with the tradi-
t -, even if he had wished to. Miss
HIGHLANDER was desirable in many re-
spects. Her fathers ample fortune had
not come early enough or rapidly
CROUCH to spoil her. In moments when
feeling for her achieved its near
nproach to sentiment the conser-
Young man perceived what a
~ resplendent figure she would
IS the mistress of her own house
he hostess at her own table.
smith snapped the switch of the cleo
t cs and began to lay out his evening
clothes, methodically but with a GER
tain air of calm deliberatiOn, inserting
the buttons in the waistcOat, choosing
hose of the proper thinness, rummag
ing q virgin tie out of it's box in the
top dressing-case drawer.
Tt was in the search for the tie that
he turned up q mute reminder of his
nearest approach to any edge of the
real chasm Of sentiment: small glove,
somewhat soiled and use-wOrn, with
tiny rip in one of the fingers. 1t had
been full year since he had seen the
glove or it's owner, whom he had met
only once, and that entirely by chance.
The girl was a visitor from the West,
the daughter of a ranchman, he had
understood; and she had been stopping
town. Smith had driven over one eve
ming in his runabout to make a call
upon the daughters of the house, and
had found q lawn party in progress,
with the western visitor as the guest
of honor.
Acquaintance-sucha an acquaintance
as can be achieved IN a short social
hour-had followed. At all points the
beWitching young woman from the will
derness had proved to be a hooking
critic of the commonplace conventions,
and had been moved to pillory the
same in the person of her mOmentary
entertainer. Some thrills this young
person from the wide horizons had
stirred in him were his only excuse for
stealing her glove. There remained
now nothing of the clashing encounter
at the lawn party save the soiled glove,
q rather obscure memory of a face too
piquant and attractive to be cheapened
by the word pretty" these and q
thing she had said ct the moment of
parting: Eyes; l am going back home
very soon. don't like your SNUG mid
die West civilization, Mr.. Smtth-it
smothers me. l don't wonder that it
breeds men who live and grow up and
die without ever having a chance to
find themselves"
Some day, perhaps, he would tell
Verda HIGHLANDER of the sharp-tOngued
little Western beauty. Verda-and all
sensible people-would smile at the
idea that he, John Montague Smith,
was of those who had not found"
themselves, or that the finding-by
which he had understood the Western
young woman to mean something radt-
cal and upsetting- could in any way
be forced upon a man who was old
enough and sane enough to know his
own lengths and breadths and depths.
He was stripping off his coat to dress
when he saw two letters which had evil
IDENTIFY been thrust under the door dur
ing his absence with Debritt. One of
the envelopes was plain, with his name
SER 0bled on it in pencil. The other
s Dor a typewriter address with the
care of Westfau Foundries company in
its upper Ieft-hand corner. Smith
opened Carter Westfall's letter first
and read it with a little twinge of
shocked surprise, as one reads the story
of a brave battle fought and lost.