Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-02-02
Continued from Yesterdays Starr
INSTALLMENT XVIII.

promised that had not yet been
recorded simply because there
Il was limit to physical means.
Radley terrified Phyllis one day
by smilingly asking her whether she
would prefer to witness human sacri-
flee at Stonehenge, or the burial of a
Neanderthal man! These were not now
to her meaningless words: she had just
looked at what he told her he believed
to be torch-lit group of Christian refu-
gees in the Roman catacombs.
Questions were asked in Congress.
Phyllis heard Radley make an oral an
swer in his private Office in Santa
Monica, which was sent in a three
inch ball to be released in the Senate
chamber at Washington. 1t consisted
of an introduction to little series of
scenes which accompanied it, and which
showed Senators the means of reliving
scenes in committee rooms and hotel
conferences. There was an instant out
burst of buster from several sources,
in which the word censorship was again
prominent. One fire-eating gentleman
wired Brainard an incautious, open
personal rebuke. Brainard wired back
to him, Heads or tails; are you CEN
soring me or am I censoring you?" A
nationwide laugh went up but
Phyllis wondered whether people
laughed from a sense of humor, or a
sense of relief at seeing just where
Brainard's attention was centered.
Aunt Relief said she hoped Radley
would at least respect the reputation
of the family. And when Phyllis did
not reply with immediate reinsurance,
her face went blank.
why, you think he will, don't you?"
she queried. Why, couldn't GO on
living if I couldn't conceal my past!"
Van Wrinkle ventured an epigram
zones past, like roots, might better
remain buried" he said He even joked
a bit about it. I'm rather fortunate
just now than otherwise" he decided;
"Brainard might show up utterly dis
graceful things in my career and I
never know It'll"
People said that Brainard had no
conscience-that he was growing "as
hard as nails" las adamant," as other
fiinty things. They whispered of forms
of debauchery that drew crowds sus-
piciously to certain places. Phyllis
could only look at his Tightening mouth
and almost fiercely bright eyes, and
wonder how much was true. They
called him the ghost-maker. He an
swered that people make their own
ghosts; it wasn't his fault if they
walked. And he went coolly on solving
his mammoth manufacturing problems
of which she overheard only an occa-
sional hint.
She saw that when blows were struck
at him, however, he invariably struck
back. When his retaliations could be
seen and traced. she sometimes wept
over them in the certainty that he had
lost all vision but that of empire.
But when the blows he struck were
evidenced only in results, in the COL
lapse of attacks against him, in official
designations, in mysterious transfers of
authority, in abrupt termination of ca
reerS, in lamely explained deaths lit
| was then that the girl lived in night
mare, face to face with a hideous vision
of ruin.
Her nervous collapse in the first
shock of fear seemed of small account
now. It was like the first pain and
blood of a childish bruise. Changes
| were being wrought in herself that she
could see were not of the passing sort.
| The glimpse she had had of her own
girliSh loneliness of a few months ago
served to emphasize the following OF
| her fevered cheeks and the haunting
| things shadowing her eyes-mere sur
1aSc cFAueHCes VI "udt Wcut Ou WitIIui.
But no one noticed her. Her mother
seemed to be living in kind of golden
haze. Perhaps it was happiness-she
found it at the Bonmar. Phyllis dis
covered that she was living again in
the days of her girlhood there, and the
struggle of her parents with poverty
long ago. There might be pathos, but
there was not outright tragedy, in her
mothers case. Her father, who had
been the personification of seasoned
sense, kindness and quiet philosophy
had become nervous, hurried, impa-