Cleveland County herald., 1919-07-10

gestive of tolerance, although it cer- tainly would have been recorded by Il less sensitive person than Barnes as ripping"
 In reply to his perfunctory delight ed, Pm sure, etc." she said quite clear | ly: "Oh now I remember. I was sure 1 had seen you before, Mir. Barnes. You are the magic gentleman who sprang like a mushroom out of the earth early yesterday afternoon"
 And frightened you he said i; ''whereupon you vanished like the mushroom that is gobbled up by the predatory glutton."
 He had thrilled at the sound of her voice. It was the low, deliberate voice of the woman of the crossroads, and as before, he caught the almost i'm pereeptible accent The red gleam from the blazing logs fell upon her shining hair; it glistened like gold | She wore simple evening gown of white, softened over the shoulders and neck with fall of rare valenciennes 1 lace. There was no jewelry-not even a ring on her slender, tapering fingers
 Mrs. Collier, the hostess, was an el- | derly, heavy-featured woman, decid- l edly overdressed. Mrs. Van Dyke l her daughter, was a woman of thirty tall, dark and handsome in a bold, 1 flashing sort of way. The lackadaisi- cal gentleman with the mustaehe turned out to be her husband.
 My brother is unable to be with us tonight, MT. Barnes" explained Mrs Collier. "Mr. O'Dowd may have told you that he Is an invalid. Quite rarely is he well enough to leave his room. He has begged me to present his apologies and regrets to you. An other time, perhaps. you will give him the pleasure he is missing tonight"
 De Soto's cocktails came in. Miss Cameron did not take one. O'Dowd | proposed toast.
 ''To the rascals who went gunning for the other rascals. But for them we should be short at least orfe mem Der of this agreeable company"
 It was rather startling. Barnes glass stopped half way to his lips. An instant later he drained it. He ac- cepted the toast as compliment from the whilom Irishman, and not as a tribute to the prowess of those mys- terious marksmen.
 The table in the spacious dining room was one of those long, narrow Italian boards, unmistakably antique | o; people could have been seated with out crowding, and when the seven took ]! their places wide intervals separated them. No effort had been made by the hostess to bring her guests close to- gether, as might have been done by table. The serving plates were of sil- yer. Especially beautiful were the long-stemmed water goblets and the graceful champagne glasses. They were blue and white and of a design and quality no longer obtainable ex- cept at great cost. The esthetic Barnes was not slow to appreciate the rarity of the glassware and the chaste beauty of the serving plates.
 The man Nicholas was evidently the butler, despite his Seventh avenue manner. He was assisted in serving by two stalwart and amazingly clumsy footmen, of similar ilk and nationality. On seeing these additional men serv- ants Barnes began figuratively to count on his fingers the retainers he had so far encountered on the place. Already he had seen six. all of them powerful rugged fellows. It struck him as extraordinary, and in a way significant, that there should be so many men at Green Fancy.
 Much to his disappointment he was not placed near Miss Cameron at table Indeed she was seated as far away from him as possible. There was a place set between him and De Soto, for symmetry's sake, Barnes con- cluded. In this he was mistaken 1; they had barely seated themselves when Mrs. Collier remarked:
 "Mr. Curtis secretary usually joins us here for coffee. He has his dinner with my brother, and then, poor man, comes in for brief period of relaxa- tion. When my brother is in one of his bad spells poor MT. Loeb doesn't have much time to himself"
 Loeb, the private secretary, came in for coffee. He was tall, spare man of thirty. pallidly handsome, with clark, studious eyes and features of an unmistakably Hebraic cast, as his name might have foretold. His teeth were marvelously white and his slow smile attractive. More than once dur ing the hour that Loeb spent with them Barnes formed and dismissed a stubborn overcoming opinion that the man was not Jew. Certainly he was not an American Jew. His voice his manner of speech, his every action stamped him as one born and bred ir land far from Broadway and its counterparts. If Jew he was of the east as it is measured from Rome the Jew of the carnal Orient.
 And as the evening wore on there