Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1923-04-25

soft gray cloak. No Chinese princess
could ever have ridden at such pace.
But, again, there was the gentle, al
most Iifeless movement of her hands,
and the low fullness of her voice when
she talked of Tau Kuan.
She was delightful sorrow to Lev
lngton, as if all his days, too, had fore
told her. She did not know herself.
She was eighteen. The ways of these
Outland people were familiar to her,
| and it was natural she should love
their national interests, strangely like
Americas, bitterly different. The red
dish palace was home. Her mother
was gone. The grand vizir had
brought her American gowns, street
suits, and other articles the models
had displayed at Sperman's in the city
terribly far distant.
| There was no estimating the pains
| the old Chinese had taken to secure
such things for her. Con knew at least
| Of his connection with the Wedger
| house, which must have been arranged
| by secret means, and it was clear that
Chez Ming had taken many a point
from Cecil Wedger's incipient queens
of the cinema. The vizir had been
content to cook for a young snob,
merely to garner some information as
to how a young American girl should
| be dressed, how she must talk AID
think, and what, if anything, might
please her. Con appreciated the genius
that had made the exclusive Wedgers
a part of Chez Ming's plan for the
completion of Tau Kuan, empire of
the Yellow Sun.
The tangle of East and West trou-
bIed Lexington more and more. Helen
! had almost lost her mothers counsel
regarding Prince Yekutoi. 1t was too
easy to feel the dead Eithna's horror
of the young Mongol, and of the plan
she had foreseen, his marriage with
her little white daughter. The mother
must have striven to develop American
instincts-the riding of ponies, love of
oak trees, independence, and natural
frankness.
/ Lexington saw more wildly how
/ March must Lave loved Eithna, how
the loss of her had nearly broken down
| his sanity, and, at last, how he had
| kept secret his innermOst intention for
another journey into the perilous Cobb.
It had meant too much for him to put
his hope in words. He had planned to
run down the international beast,
| oil +ha& cid Of +hn ctr G
just as ne had conf1ded it to Loving
| ton. But then there had been much
more. March's interests did not begin
| or end in a federal commission. Con
realized now the deep and double joy
| of his friend when he had first found
the drug, only to find that the tracings
| led to the Cobb desert.
The affair of the present morning
required to mind-the monzoul in his
enchanted garden. Despite seeming
| leisure, events in the palace went too
| swiftly for a final valuation. Con was
puzzled to find that the more closely
he tried to recall the garden, the ap-
| pearance of the fat lord, the singing
bird, the dancer, and the magician, the
less he knew about them. Had the
| juggler poured his wine into the fourth
| dimension, or was the watcher merely
transported by a breath of the drug?
Lexington went now to the outer cor
ners of his prison, enduring the hostile
| eyes of a double guard, to look for the
vine-covered bower of royal entertain.
ment, but could see nothing of it. He
must have turned into courtyard of
| the palace itself. One grim assurance
chung to him-the sinister fragrance
of kOresh.
Through mid-afternoon, as often as
his active mind abandoned some new
and equally futile plan of escape, his
thought circled around to Helen. He
reclined under the green silken awning
and repeated her name. He was awak-
! ened to the center of his being and
was scarcely aware that every new
plan for escape included two others
besides himself, and one a princess.
Mentally she remained with HMM
the throne room, her glance toward
the prisoner she had spared, her bore
i dom with the proceedings, her beauti-
full feet, a Western woman as he must
have guessed had it not been for the
slight tilt of her brows and this he
had seen, more closely, to be but the
| cunning work of her maid-servants; in
her own apartment, surrounded by
things American, the transformation
that was not complete because of her
Chinese training, personal qualities
| that tantaIized him, the first words
that had thrilled him so unaccountably
and the last bringing a clutch of ter
ror; the clear young beauty of her
face, her lips, the soft brown of her
hair, the curve of girlish shoulders,
the grave pleasure at meeting that
stranger, her father, and the unemo-
tional view she held of her own future
as queen of this fantastic state. These
fragmentary thoughts possessed Lev
ington, brought him life as it had
never come before, hurt him savagely,