The midland journal. (Rising Sun, Md.) 1885-1947, 1927-11-11
CHAPTER I

ing him waiting. He glanced at his
wrist watch. Ten minutes past the
time for their rendezvous and he had
been here five minutes ahead of time.
Waiting fifteen minutes-for a COM
mon little Pennsylvania Dutch girl
Really, she must be taught better. He
would have to give her lesson.
Hitherto 1t had been he who had
kept her waiting here at their tryst-
ing place. Deliberately. To keep her
in her place. Lest she get it into her
head that he wanted to marry her
ANY girl might expect anything these
days-all social barriers falling, no
lines drawn
She was not, as yet, spoiled. She
had never presumed to resent his
keeping her waiting. Regarded him
with awe. Demure little thing she
was
He considered how he should i'm
press upon her the seriousness Of the
fact that she had displeased him. Go
home and not be here when she did
finally get here after walking three
miles to meet him? No. he couldn't
be quite so ruthless as that. Anyway,
she would just think he had failed to
keep their rendezvous and would not
know he had been here and had gone
away again.
Leave note pinned to the tree?
Not safe. Even If he did not sign his
Co,,,,,,s% v,o,,ncolP to xurifinU
and you're apt to have a lawsuit for
damages or "heart balm" on your
hands. Above all things he must
avoid a scandal-1ust now especially
on the eve of becoming engaged
Well. one thing was certain, she
must not know he had been so eager
as to have gotten here ages ahead Of
her and so forbearing as to have watt
ed all this time. He'd hide and not
appear until after she arrived.
Picking his way to avoid mud, he
descended the hill on the slope oppo-
site the one she would ascend.
He found himself surprised that he
should be taking all this trouble for
little country girl. Unprecedented in
his experience. Never. even for one
of his own class. had he put himself
out and he was nothing IL not a stick
Ter for "class" in these days of fall
ing barriers. First time in his life
he had ever been so lured by girl
Of low breeding. A Pennsylvania
Dutch farmers daughter who talked
the lingo-heavens How on earth
was 1t that he, usually too pernlckety-
nice, he admitted It, found the vulgar
little thing so irresistible?
All, but the fact was she wasn't vul.
bar. really; only unsophisticated. If
she were inherently vulgar. the gum
chewing type, he would not be here.
No, not for all the seduction Of that
hite throat so tantalizingly exposed
hen she bent back her head and
l4ughed; and that unutterable sweet.
ness of her lips: and the dazzling
whiteness and evenness of her teeth ;
\ and. that musical little gurgle when
anything amused her. (And such un-
expected things did amuse her, like
his correcting her English and her
manners.)
She puzzled him little; had from
the first; he did not 'get" her exactly;
something there was about her-it
could not be subtlety, she was too
simple. But he vaguely sensed that
she was not quite so simple as she
seemed: vaguely distrusted her; she
did, sometimes, with an innocence that
was almost suspiciously stupid, say
such pointed things; things that did
prick beneath the skin little.
Y0uthfully priding himself upon his
extreme modernism. and upon being u
disciple of French decadent critics
of art and life, be believed that he
in common with all the new genera.
ton who did any thinking, had reject
ed all religion. But the truth was that
in the face Of the wreckage of faiths
all over the landscape, he did most
tenaciously and devoutly cling TO the
faith of his fathers-their deeply re-
ligious faith in the responsibility OF
the Creighton family and its divine
right to special prerogatives-the pre-.
negatives naturally inherent in own.
ers of anthracite coal mines.
st. Croix Creighton was glad that
he looked much more like a man of
letters than a man of business. He
cultivated that literary" look he
thought he had; and he did have a
good deal to go On-cIear-cut features,
cold, thoughtful eyes, rather Byronic
head.
Had he not been so we'll placed in
life as always to command considera-
tion. he would hardly have "got by"
so smoothly as he did with his little
assumptions of superiority and his
little affectations. But as no one of
his world had ever had the temerity
to consider him ridiculous, he did not
know he was. To be sure, there was
his elder brother, Marvin, who some
times waxed sarcastic at his expense
but Marvin, In the judgment of his
own class, was not person to be
taken seriously, for the obvious rea.
son that he did not take himself nor