Plentywood herald. [volume] (Plentywood, Mont.) 1908-current, 1929-01-24

IN W ~PARTs-PART n
NHE story is of Queenstown with its
poisonous gaveties. and Of Dorothy
= Haviland. with that lovely oddly OF
hers. 1 merely appear now and then to
tell the thing as IT happened.
Thinking of London one thinks of fog
and romance. or, thinking of New York
of lights and extravagant Joys. In much
the same way. but more sharply. any one
who remembers the Queenstown station
thinks of heat and intrigue.
The heat was the curse OF the place
and intrigue was the main diversion. II
was bound to be so. The women had
nothing else to amuse them, and the
men. officers n civilians alike, had
only their work. which was OF n bore
some n ignominious sort. or course
there was snobbery and a pretense of So
ciety. but that was canvas for the real
picture. Intrigue was all hat made liv
ing possible TO people stifled by the dull
ness of the post and fed up everlastingly.
Heat. boredom. gossip. intrigue.
Every afternoon people met on the ter
race of the Casino to talk and sip iced
drinks. There they smilingly tore to
pieces the reputation of any absent per
IN, or of any person who left the group.
1t vas an idle pastime. 1t never stopped
fi~irtations; it simply gave them the add
ed 2est of secrecy and risk. So Queens
town lived on whispers and iuleps. stolen
kisses. and moonlit promises in q semi
tropical enervation, and nothing much
ever came Of anything there.
The raciest topic under the palmettos
was MORA Varick. People pretended TO
be indignant about her. because it
looked better. but secretly. I think, they
were grateful to Mora. She put on a
rDpd c6Nu on1 uoya than, cnnNathtnu ~
talk about-and guess about.
Il like husbands" she said openly. las
long as they're animals Of prey. 1 should
MT, of course, care to W one, a Gagged
and domesticated one
Other women's husbands. she was frank
to say, fascinated her. They were ur-
bane, observation-disclosures that meant.
And appreciative.
Bachelors, no." she said. They're like
medieval ladies-haunted by the Idea
that they're pursued. Much too shy and
silly to be worth any sane woman's at
tention."
She seemed to be telling the truth,
though nobody could believe that MORA
Tor any one else at Queenstown) would
do that. What was her game. then? Well,
that was what people talked about. Mean
while MORA lived up to herself. She
coolly collected one husband after an
other. on with a new love almost before
she was of with the old Lieut.. Havi-
land was her fourth husband.
Dickie Haviland had wings, and wom-
en- liked him He was a flying officer and
the government, with some notion of
equity, gave him double pay for his rank
as long as he evaded death. His life was
not in any great peril because there
wasn't any plane at the station for
Dickie to fly in. But he took this dan
ger bonu cheerfully.
In fact, he made a kind Of happy
philosophy of the idea. Double pay;
double everything. Double cocktails.
Dance all night. Dorothy for a wife;
Mora for a playmate. Eat, drink and
be merry today. also tomorrow.
MORA was not really beautiful. She
was unbelievably smart. with Just that
elegance of line that is so startling in a
thoroughbred wolfhound. Her dark
brown eyes held overtones of gray and a
peculiar wisdom, and were placed at so
wide an interval that they seemed in
s~crutable. To the men she was always a
little unreal. Men imagined she was un-
like other omen-and then tried des-
p%erately to find out to what extent she
was not.
But Dorothy Haviland, the daredevil
Dickie's wife, was a lovely and perfect
creature. The seams of her chiffon stock
ings were straight, parallel, vertical lines.
Her eyes were a luminous grav. alter
nately shy and unhinching under deep
lashes that had the slow sweep and elo-
quence Of a feather fan. And Dorothy,
as I happen to know, had courage and
constancy. She hated Queenstown with
a deep sincerity, kept u of the wal
lows of gossip, and went about as little
as she could.
The station wore Dickie was mad to
neglect Dorothy and pursue MORA. Every
afternoon Capt. Sterling's wife, a med
dlesome old cat, would start the ball
rolling by snorting that Dorothy ought
to be told.
Perhaps" I ventured, "she knows"
That was a record in understatement. If
Dorothy had been spared any whisper, or
lnnuendo, or plying smile, 1t was an
oversight.
Then" said Mrs. Sterling chushingly,
she certainly ought to be told"
Well Told what?" l asked
her maliciously, and there l had her.
Told what? Dickie's infaturation was
plain enough. There was nothing to tell.
And beyond that nobody knew anything.
Mora had her own clever little way of
leading the gossips on just so far and
then throwing them back on their own
1maginatiOnS.
Thus things went on. Dickie danced
his wild attendance on Mora. Dorothy
hSPO a oWtCI ltSeIFc, Ic1uStu even 10 IlY
to chain up the Grant Dickie, and de-
clined to discuss herself with others. She
didn't even reproach Dickie, and was
something of a puzzle herself.
Some clever o u got the idea that per-
haps Dorothy was running a very u
rosa affair of her own. The idea was so
idiotic that 1T had to be dropped-with a
sigh Of regret.
In August Lieut. Jimmy Snarrow cana
to Queenstown to make a fourth in the
pretty sextet. Jimmy had wings, too,
and was a brother officer of Dickie's. He
brought a plane with him. Every one
waited with interest to see what part he
would play.
Anywhere else a charming new officer
would have paired with MORA, the sta
tons most attractive unmarried girl. But
such matters were managed differently