Connecticut western news., 1921-01-27


 room girls, and dress-models, and per haps you think they mirror the lie. Why, Madge, the taunts that those girls fling indifferently nt virtue and at vice are so vile that they couldn't be repeated even among half-decent men. And the other way, the private door for the private secretary. That's road of burned bridges. Every man, decent or indecent, feels a queer sinking of the heart when he hears of a woman taking it." He looked at her shrewdly. And yet you may do it." he said, half to himself If you are one of the hungry women, God help you, for they all walk blindfolded."
 "They don't walk" said Madge, flushing, and her eyes gleaming strangely That's just the point: they rush, whirl, and"
 And crash" finished Bobby.
 That's the very word," said Madge. 'If you'll only keep on the way you've started, I'd love to talk to you all night"
 "No chance of that" said Bobby, straight-lipped. "Tm through, and I'm going" He turned toward the door.
 "Not without kissing me good-by. Bobby!" cried Madge.
 He looked over his shoulder with 6 polite but impersonal smile.
 I'm not much on kissing strange women" he said lightly. ~It would take me years to learn to kiss yeu again" >a. .-<- 5.t He left the room and the house.
 With his top-hat pushed back on his head, the ends of his nnnler flying loose, his oyercoat half unbuttoned, he swung up the deserted lower reaches of the Avenue, punctuating his thoughts with the solid rap of his stick on the pavement It might be supposed that he was thinking and mourning over the sudden demise of the Miss Van Tellier he had thought he had known for many years, but such was not the case.
 MT. Randolph was not built on l mourning lines; at the moment under review, he was thinking about himself and the strange fate that had made him foster-child of fortune. He pro- ceeded to lock back ten years. Just a decade ago he had had his one meet ing with the young lady whose disap- pearance had brought him an unstable l af1uence. It had taken place on this very avenue and less than forty short blocks away. He had reason to re- member the encounter, for 1t had brought into sudden conjunction a lovely Persian cat, a lovely wire-hairsd terrier, a lovely child, and himself. The cat had dashed from a proud front door to cross Forty-somethfng street under the nose of a taxi-cab {; the dog had flown in yapping pursuit and, in the act, yanked his young nis- tress off her pins. He Mir. Randolph, had seized one of her flying feet, hauled her &2a the terrier back to safety, and no sooner placed her up- s zisle! asa asa s.:.a==ttlheeda .=tled down her absurdly short skirts than he she, and especial ly it, the 60s, became the center and circumference ef an :==..==sve % wheel. 2
 Her unshaken determtnaticu ts hoi6 to the leash, whatever happened. brought disaster. The said leash wound three times round her ankles and those of MT. Randolph, bringing them both down. kerplunk and facing each other. My, what a bumpin she had cried, in startled tones, and then thrown back her curly head and laughed.
 IL was so that he remembered her a child of ten or eleven summers and no winters, merry as a sunny day, dark-haired, dark-eyed. pink-cheeked pampered but unspoiled. She had risen and taken his hand, told him her name, thanked him, ordered a fiurEied nurse to thank him, shaken her finger at the terrier, and said, "Good-by" and "Come on, Maggie" all while he was still rubbing the seat of his first long trousers.
 On that day she had been Miss Imo- gene Pamela Thornton, petted darling of the gods and MT. Brewster Thorn ton, banker and widower; two months later had come Thornton's financial smash and, immediately afterward, his spiritual, moral and bodily collapse. Everything that had made for life in him having been swept away, he died as matter of course, and was buried For sole inheritance, little Genie Thornton found herself possessor and possessed of one Maggie ORourke, a nurse of long standing, of earnest and | faithful face, and a monster heart im- prfsoned in pitifully thin chest.
 It had taken Genie's great-uncle Asa Thornton, six more months to for get a quarrel of sixteen years stand ing with his nephew, and by that time child and nurse had been seeped into | that lower world which can't afford morning and afternoon editions and is too busy praying for daily bread to look for a rain of mama in the daily press iii ..t s In short, Maggie and her charge, traced down the ladder of reputable, disreputable. and impossible lodgings,