The Belding banner-news. (Belding, Mich.) 1918-1973, 1920-03-24
Copyright By Harper q Brothers

II could not wish you anything but
happiness" he returned. "And had
been so fortunate as Eden. In making
your acquaintance first, / might have
hoped to contribute to your happiness
more directly than 1 can under the
present circumstances" He was
speaking in his low. sedulous notes,
and his words sent the girls blood
rushing In strange mixture of graft
fication and anger. The tribute he
impled-that he himself would have
been glad to have been her sutton
was skillfully planned to appeal to
her vanity, and her anger was due to
its success. She told herself she
should not listen TO such words; she
should hate TO hear such words. And
yet she listened to them, and was not
sure that she hated them. She could
only say:
you are very good, Mr.. Coward"
He pressed her hand at the door,
and again that strange mixture of
emotions surged through Der.
Coward proceeded to the business
section of the town, well pleased with
the evenings events. He found his
way impeded by crowds in front Of the
newspaper offices. He had paid little
attention to the progress of tae war
scare, attrlbuiing II to the skillful pub
licity of interests connected with the
manufacture of ornaments. To the
last he had not believed that war was
possible.
Nobody wants to fight he had as
sured his business acquaintances.
"Even the armament people don't
want to fight. All they want is to
frighten more money out of the tax
payers of Europe" To Coward this
explanation seemed very complete. 1t
covered the whole ground and left
nothing TO be said.
But tonight he was aware of a
keener tension in the crowd atmos-
phere. They were good-natured
crowds, to be sure, laughing and
cheering and making sallies of heavy
wit; but they were in some way more
intense than he had ever seen before.
There was no fear of war; there was,
rather, an adventurous spirit which
seemed to fear that the affair would
blow over, as had so many affairs in
the past. and ali the excitement go
for nothing. That war. IL 1t came to
war, could last no one dreamed; Ii
would be a matter of a few weeks, a
few months, at the most, until thor
oughly whipped Germany would retire
behind the Rhine to plan ways of rails
ing the indemnity which outraged civil
llzation would demand.
Coward elbowed his way through
the crowds, smiling, in his superior
knowledge, over their excitement.
Newspapers must have headlines.
At his office Coward used a tele-
phone. Then he walked to a restau-
rant, where, after a few minutes, he
was joined by young woman. They
took table in box. Supper was dis
posed of, and the young woman began
to grow impatient.
"Well, you brought me here" she
said, at last. you've fed me, and you
don't feed anybody, Coward, without
a purpose. What's the considerations"
'I'm pulling off little joke, and
want you to help me. You know Eden
Dave Elden"
"Sure. I've known him ever since
that jolt put him out of business up in
your rooms, ever so many years ago.
He was too rural for that mixture"
II want you to get him down to
your place some night to be agreed
upon-Pll fix the date later-and keep
him there until / call for him, with
his fiancee."