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SYNOPSIS. PART L?Robert Hervey Randolph, young New York man-about-town, leaves the home of his sweetheart, Madge Van Tellier, chagrined because of her refusal of his proposal of marriage. His income, 110,000 a year, which he must surrender if a certain Miss Imogen Pamela Thorn ton (whom he has seen only as a small girl ten years before) is found, is not considered by the girl of his heart adequate to modern needs. In a "don't care" mood Randolph enters a taxi, unseen by the driver, and is driven to the stage door of a theater. A man he knows, Duke Beamer, induces a girl to enter the' cab. Beamer, attempting to follow, is pushed back by Randolph and the cab moves on. His new acquaintance tells Randolph she is a chorus girl, and has lost her position. She is in distress, even hungry, and he takes her to his apartment There, after lunch, a chance re- j mark convinces him the girl is the miss- ! ing Pamela Thornton. He does not tell i her of her good fortune, but secures her ! promise to stay in the flat until the i morning, and leaves her. In a whimsical mood, also realizing that the girl's reappearance has left him practically penni- j less, he bribes the taxi driver to let him I take his job, and leaving word with the legal representative of the Thornton es- i tate where he can And Pamela, takes up ' his new duties under the name of "Slim j Hervey." He loves the girl, but his pride forbids him approaching her under their i changed conditions. PART II.?One evening he Is engaged j by Beacher Tremont, notorious profligate, i to drive him and Madge Van Tellier to a hostelry known as "Greenwood." Aware of the evil nature of the place, Randolph j drives the oair to Greenwood cemeterv. ! Infuriated, Beacher gets out of the cab and Randolph leaves him there, laking the girl (who has awakened to a realiza- ; tion of her folly) to her home. , Madge recognizes him. "What a dream of a night," said the clear voice of Miss Van Tellier. i "Shall I be a traitor to my sex and t betray one of its secrets to you?" "Please do," murmured Mr. Tre- j mont. From the very tone of his voice | one could divine that he had slipped i an arm around her and was holding j her close. "Well, it's this," she continued, j "Women are not conquered by man j alone, but by man and atmosphere, j We never rush at the precipice; we flutter toward it with many stops and pauses. The silliest breezes of impulse may carry us on or a puff of unkind aid hold us back. It all really depends on the man imposing his atmosphere so steadily that the drifting j soul of woman forgets its inborn title i to vagrancy and sleepily assumes its j enemy's goal." "Madge," said Mr. Tremont almost j earnestly, "you frighten me. I never knew you could talk like that. You frighten me because I have a terror ' of analyzed personal relations." j Randolph could hear a faint rustling of her robe as thouth she had nestled closer to her escort. "I never meant to startle you, Beacher," her voice j continued, not quite so clear. Into its j tone had crept, hesitatingly, a trace of unaccustomed emotion. "I was only j warning you. Every man can make a ; world of his arms for one woman; j not all can hold the illusion to he- ; yond possession." "I can, if you will only help me," i whispered Tremont, and paused as j though his own earnestness were tak- j ing him by surprise. "I wonder," said Miss Van Tellier. "You have played the right game. ! You have never said a vulgar thing to me or stooped to the usual hypo- ! crisies; those are compliments by in- j ference that have flattered the best I that is in me. You have set the play j in a high plane that winning, wins ! all of me; bi#t?" "But what?" asked Tremont. "But there is danger in the high ! flight," finished Miss Van Tellier. "An ! air-pocket in your atmosphere and, 1 pouf! all is lost?the good in me that ycu will have missed as well as the ; bad that you could have won by a ; baser effort." "What do you mean?" asked Tremont, 110 longer making the slightest effort to hide his awakened interest. "I was thinking." said Miss Van Tel Lier. dreamily, "that every woman is group of three individuals. Shall i tell you their names?" "Yes." said Treinont. "The first," continued the girl, her ! voice floating from her as though i carried on the bosom of her dream, i "is called Flesh; the second. Spirit, j and the third?the third I shall name the Veiled Clod." "Madge!" cried Tremont, and Randolph. listening with all his ears, could almost feel The clutch on his own arms with which the man had seized the girl's, as though to drag her back from her mind's far distance. "People wonder," she continued, her mood unbroken, "at the wreck of apparently perfect marriages mid yet it's so Finfple to any woman that it's amazing that I should be the first to display our open secret. Only the complete lover can be secure of h!s beloved. Readier. He who wins her j flesh alone leaves her spirit to betray 1 him, and he who wins the spirit alone ! v-/?PML>co/mm\ Is in "mortal danger of the "woman of the flesh." "The explanation," said Tremont, whimsically, "is so feminine that it confuses. If you had said that each woman is a trinity and must be thrice ? ? e?i won before a man s nonor can jlcci secure, understanding would be a simple matter. Did you leave out the Veiled God purposely or just to be different and avoid the obvious?" "To avoid the obvious is an instinct of breeding," said Miss Van Tellier, "and I would never blush for doing it; but where would your thoughts be now if I had said just what you expected, If I had treated the Veiled God as a matter of fact! Oh, no! One can clip with words the wings of flesh and spirit, but not of the Veiled God in woman, for its very essence is a deferred possession." She paused, but as Tremont clung to the silence, she presently continued. "The complete lover is the man who having conquered all the heights of flesh and spirit in his mistress, dwells consciously in the presence of an undiscovered god and gazes out upon a broad land eternally promised, never materially seized. Few are the men?few are the men?" Her voice trailed off as though her thoughts had run ahead of words and reached finality without the use of the spoken phrase. "Few are the men who attain to that serene security," Tremont finished for her, only half conscious of j what he was saying. Randolph could her the rustle of her turning to her companion. "How wonderful," she said. "That is what T 1-horVif Knf fUrln't ojiv" "Madge," said Tremont, "what have | you done? It's true that I have never stooped to hypocrisies with you and that I have never while with you spoken a vulgar word. Did you think that I have been knowingly wise? Well, I haven't. I didn't know until this moment why I chose a rare and high atmosphere to reach you. Now I know. It was because you were there. I chose only to come to you rather than drag you down to the drab of the usual. What you have done is to carry me higher than I ever meant to go. You have taken me off the beaten path and showed me an unexpected treasure. I'm no longer myself. I am cold and afraid." Randolph could feel that the speaker was drawing away frOm the girl and a moment later his senses were to surpass themselves in additional divination. "You are afraid of that woman in mer' asked Miss Van Tellier softly. "What about this one?" And then it was that Randolph's deductive antennae quivered under their burden of intelligence. He knew as certainly as though he had faced about that an adorable Madge, tender and wide-eyed, had slipped her bare arms around Beacher Tremont's neck and kissed him on the mouth. There was a long silence; then came Tremont's voice, thick and j strange to the ear. "A moment ago," i it said, "I was afraid for you; now ! I'm afraid for myself. I am like a man who has carelessly dropped a lighted match and finds himself within the ring of a prairie fire. I can only wonder at my stupidity in thinking of you in connection with a casual possession and not as a consuming flame. You see? Already you have burned through the thin crust of lies that guards man from definite seizure by woman?any woman." "Kiss me, Beacher," murmured the girl's voice as though his words had ! swirled around and by her, leaving ! h^r rmmose untouched. "Take me I -i- J and hold me carefully where no un- ; kind afr can drive me from you. Take ! all the women in me?one by one if ! you must." At that moment Mr. Robert H. Ran- I dolph. in the person of Slim Hervey, ! chauffeur, very nearly wrecked his ; four-cylinder argosy with Its burden j of three fates, still individually and j collectively indispensable to the con- ! tinuify of tin's yarn. lie missed the ; ditch by a hair's breath, caught his : own with a gasp, returned to the mid- j die of the broad highway and fixed | his attention on a certain very definite | matter with which it had been more ! or less constantly concerned ever since \ he had been directed to hit it up for ! Greenwood. The road to that well-known .hostelry was usefully devious and fares I were seldom worried as to how any particular driver set oik to find this choicest of needles in tin- hav-stack of - t - - 1 < I,A ilit- country nin.s mai uui me i<iumscape of Westchester arid adjacent couth it's as long as he brought the search to a successful end somewhere this side of the panes of hunger. xNove: ihe'ess, had not Mr. Treniont, j himself a motorist of no mean experi- j ence, been completely absorbed by the i sudden discovery that he had his j right arm around an entirely new j world, lie would Fave beeF struck Inevitably by two things. First, that this was certainly not any one of the climbing roads to the Greenwood hostelry; second, that the man at the wheel knew more about losing his way in the vicinity of Manhattan and finding it again than did the combined roadmaps of the United States and its allies?supposing it to have had allies at the time. However, Mr. Tremont's* absorption was not only absolute but continuous so that it held him in its inexorable grip right up to the moment of ghastly awakening and even over the edge. He was just saying, "My darling, never fear. I'm taking you to a pia.ce so quiei anu so guarded that this dream which you have dressed in an unexpected glory can flow on unbroken as long as we are true to It and to ourselves," when the cab drew up at a s'olemn and impressive portal. Without leaving his seat, the cabman reached back, unlatched the door and threw it open. "Greenwood cemetery, sir," he barked. The girl was first to grasp the words, the time and the place. "Oh!" she gasped, and in the sound of her cry Mr. Randolph could divine her whole body suddenly stiffening to a tense awakening and to the stabbing memory of the iast time she had come to this still place, her heart bursting with its long farewell to all that was left of her mother. Then came Mr. Beacher Tremont's voice in oldtime familiar tones. "Greenwood cemetery! Why, you trilillltmMI.HNMM,>11.1,1)/// V 1 'Greenwood Cemetery, Sir," He Barked plicate blockhead, I said Greenwood hostelry. Of all the d?n fools! What the devil? What the h?11? What the? What?" He choked himself into a gulping inarticulate silence as he climbed from the cab to look in the face the sum total of all human stupidity. No sooner had he alighted than Miss Van Tellier found herself ii^ voice again. "Oh.! oh!" she moaned, pressing her - -t. ? - - i door and up t 1 i*.* hiirh .steps. "Madge," lie said, "you i'ouglit a great tight tonight and when you had won you felt sorry for Tremont and surrendered. You were swept too high on the wave of the best that is in you. Promise me that you won't forget that you have won. Promise me that you jyill nancis to ner eyes, acmngiy opeiij "take me away from here." "Sure, miss," said Mr. Randolph promptly, threw in his clutch and was off. "Hi, you! D?n you! Hey! You! Driver! Confound your d?d impertinence ! Hey! How am I going to get home?'' The first of these cries was very plainly, the last very faintly heard by Mr. Randolph. After them came down the wind something that sounded very much like the ghost of a wail of despair, but the driver paid no heed. His attention was absorbed by something quite different; the dry sobs of a little heap of smoke-colored chiffon. Detours, subterfuges and the^finesse of the road-faker were swept from Randolph's mind; he made straight for the bridge and home, but long before they reached the river all sound had ceased to issue from the cab and in its stead reigned a purposeful, almost menacing silence. What was she thinking in there? What could she think? Why didn't she go right on crying and keep her mind fully ~ 1 ?: *-v. occupieu \\iiu liiai; As they swept down the incline from the bridge into City Hall park he suddenly realized that he had been on the verge of giving himself away, lie half turned his head and shouted through the speaking-slot, "What address, miss?" Her voice came back to him from very close as though her face had been pressed to the glass in an effort to make him out. "At the corner ol the Avenue and East Ninth street." Ten minutes later he drew up his cab at the appointed spot and reached back to throw open the door, but kept his foot on the clutch release, leaving the gears in mesh, first speed ahead. All his precautions were in vain, As he opened the cab door his coat sleeve was seized in a very determined grip and drawn inward, catching his elbow in a jiu-jutsu leverage that left him the Hobson's choice of either getting out and facing his captor or listening to his arm break. He chose to get down from his seat quickly. "Well, Bobby," murmured Miss Van T. Mr. Randolph,attempted no evasion; he handed the lady to the curl) and guided her gently toward her own wait and take "Fremont, all "of" tilm, with honor." "What do you mean? What did you hear?" cried Miss Van T. angrily, her pale face suddenly flushing. "From the start of the ride to the finish I heard every word," declared Mr. Randolph frankly, "and more." "And more!" repeated the hardpressed girl. "What do you mean by more?" She still tried to browbeat him, but remembering one incredibly long kiss, her eyes fell in the unequal battle with Bobby's and attempted to create diversion by staring at his gaitered legs and heavily booted feet. "Look up, Madge. Look at me," ^ M D n n/1 trrnitorl not! Anf_ SillU J1I . AVU.UUUipLl illiU ? 1U1.CU [;aiicuily until first her long lashes fluttered and then her lovely eyes swept slowly ud to his face. "That's it," he con tinued as their looks met and locked. "Let's hold that so we can't lie." "Why should I lie if you really heard everything?" asked Miss Van T., and suddenly smiled. "Madge, you little devil," said Mr. Randolph, suppressing an impulse to shake her, "can you think of what you've been doing and laugh?" "Yes, I can, just now," said Miss ' Van T., in little gasping phrases that to a man, especially one of Mr. Randolph's limpid nature, carried only their face value in words, but which to any woman would have read as plainly as the red-weather signal, "Look out for showers of tears fol< lowed by storm." "Well," said Mr. Randolph solemnly, "if you really don't realize just where you have been, let me tell you. First you flew high into clean air and you took Tremont with you. You were possessed of a vision and you made him see it, too, a mirage of those lifted places that are the altar of the mind before love. Just a mirage, an I illusion of perfect happiness, which | cold reason tells us we can't ever turn ! into reinforced concrete and plant in I the mrd hnt which we must either | forever hold as a vision or admit that j love is a sordid and wingless thing." ' Miss Van Tellier's eyes fell from j his frank gaze. Something seemed to crumple within her; she put her arms ; around Mr. Randolph's neck, clung to him, dropped her face against his shoulder and sobbed, not noisily, but as one who weeps to rest. I ! He held her close to him and went | on, his face set as though to a duty. 'Then what did you do? Because he hesitated, merely hesitated at the high door of adoration, you promptly j slammed it and dropped plumb straight down like that traitor archangel Johnny out of heaven into the arms of hell." j "Bobby!" cried Miss Van T., throw; ing back her head and struggling to ! release herself. "How dare you say a thing like that? How dare you be here, anyway? I hate you. I don't know how I ever could have thought ! I loved you. I fell, but it was into Beacher's arms, and I wish I was there i ! right now." More sobs, convulsive ones, that shook the slim body in Mr. Randolph's embrace from twitching ! shoulder to tired feet. 1 ; Lest the reader be startled by what's coming next it will do well to remind | him that this poignant scene was staged at three o'clock in the morning 1 on the high stoop of the Van Tellier ' residence in East Ninth street and never left the perimeter of the door' mat which in itself presented an almost feminine contradiction, in that it bore, done in red on its face, the ' word "Welcome," but was neverthe' less padlocked and chained to the iron 1 railing. 1 Even as Miss Van Tellier was sob1 bing her heart out and Mr. Randolph ; was standing in the bewilderment of one who knows he has not onl.v taken j the wrong turning but placed both his if J-J lillf 'l ^ "Break Away an' Come Along of Me." feet in n beartrap, a thick, heavy, unsympathetic voice arose from the i . foot of the steps. "Here! l'ouse! Break away an' | come aiong of me." Memories of a mischievous boyhood . swarmed to Mr. Randolph's mind, recollections of those days when, as I chief of the Madison Square ping, his ears had tingled to the cry of "Cheese it, de cop! We'se pinched, fellers!" I A cold sweat came out upon his brow; he slowly relaxed his grip on Miss > Van T.'s person and whispered tremu- j , lously to her to keep her nerve but hand him her latchkey. Over his shoulder he said with , forced calm, "On what charge, offi- j , cer?" "Same old dope," replied the police- j man plilegmatically; "drunker^ disor- i derly." Come along, now", er d'yer want me to climb them steps so's we c'n all roll down together?" During that speech Mr. Randolph made a lucky shot at the keyhole, stealthily turned the lock and opened the door. "Che way's clear, Madge," he whispered. "Beat it" "Oh, is it, Bobby, you dear," rattled Miss Van T. in a stage whisper that could be heard across the street. "I didn't mean it, really, what I said about hating yon. But I do love Beacher. Bobby, and I'll?I'll?" "For heaven's sake, Madge," groaned Mr. Randolph, hearing sounds as of a bear starting to swarm a tree, "keep all that till New Year's." "I wag just going to say," continued j Mica Vnn T. hrejLthlesslY but with 5) cold eye fixed on the cumbrous shadow coming up the steps, "that Til owt it to you, Hobby. I'll owe it to you. D'you understand?" "Sure," lied Mr. Randolph as he pushed her firmly through the door, then caught its knob, slammed It shut and turned to meet Nemesis. "Hello, Flahaharty!" The huge policeman stopped his ponderous but sure progression and stared long and suspiciously into Mr. Randolph's face. Finally he gave a grunt of recognition. "Slim," he said to himself aloud as though somewhere within his vast bulk there were a separate monitor that had to be tipped off to the situation, "Slim Hervey." "Sure," said Mr. Randolph, leading ' the way toward his wagon. "Who else did you think it was at this time o' night?" "How did I know," demanded Mr. j Flahaharty gruffly but not unpleasantly for him, "as you had taken on deliveries o' fancy dress-goods on top o' your regular line?" He breathed heavily and allowed his eyes to protrude farther than usual in search of a thought which he sensed in the near distance. "I tell you, Slim," he finally continued, "I don' know what this burg is a-comin' to. Why, even the street kind used to have a man to take 'em home, but this here was a bit o' high-flyin' fluff? me, I could see that?an' they had to give it to a cab!" / "Forget it," said Bobby nervously. "All I says," continued Mr. Flahaharty, "is thank God both o' my goils is married to hairy men that can an' does lick the stuffin's outen 'em." "Well, here we are," said Mr. Randolph as he stooped to turn her over. From his seat behind the wheel he began to breathe more easily and leaned out to study the face of his friend, the officer, to make sure that therein was no guile. "Cheer up, Jim," he said not quite reassured. "Forget it." "I'll try," said Mr. Flahaharty dubiously, "but it'll come hard, bein' the first time I ever seen a thing like that She sure give you a tussle, Slim!" PART III. Maid's Adventure. Take a young girl of about twenty who, in her childhood, was pampered of fortune in money, position, good breeding, and pets, turn her loose i on the world at the age of ten j with no prop but a faithful, sickly ! and destitute old nurse, kill off the i nurse a couple of years later, let the | girl fend for herself as ^cullery-maid and what not through the uninteresting stage that precedes the sudden bloom of unexpected beauty, give her a long succession of jobs secured "on her looks" and lost because she wouldn't, lead her up to the crowded portal of despair and the long-drawnout surrender; then snatch her suddenly. /lAC'fwnnfiAn JlQT [ iy Uilth JLI UXli UCi?ll UL11U11, 1CUU uvif I give her the sole freedom for a night | of Mr. Robert Hervey Randolph's comi fortable apartment and?what will she | do? The answer is easy. She will I find the bath and turn on the hot | water. That was the very first thing that Miss Imogene Pamela Thornton did after she had finished spying from the window on the movements of what she supposed was Mr. Randolph and what, in reality, was Mr. Patrick O'Reilly in Mr. Randolph's best topI hat, best suit of evening clothes and ; overcoat, best gray silk muffler, price twenty-two dollars, and best patentleather shoes?the last a very tight ; fit which made the revamped gentle! man's gait a cross between that of a ' chicken on a hot stove and a drunk I on his reluctant way home. Even the unsuspecting Miss Thorn| ton was puzzled by that halting locoi motion in connection with what she i knew of Mr. Randolph, but she added it, two and two, with the mysterious . twenty minutes spent by that gentleman and the driver in the recesses of j the cab, apparently to settle a differ1 ence in ideas as to the value of a | waiting taxi, and decided that poor ' Mr. Randolph must have issued from , tiie interview in a semi-crippled state. She herself was too excited to let pity altogether absorb her. Without ! waiting for either the tortured way! farer or the taxi to get quite out o 1 sight, she dropped the window curtain - - 1 j and turned to possess neiseii. 01 .uei world of comfort for a night. , A starved instinct led her straight to the luxuriously appointed bathroom. As previously Intimated, she turned on the hot water and clasped her hands ecstatically as she watched its crystalline ^irge and imagined she could smell the opalescent steam. But not for long was she inactive. Having surrendered to circumstance to the extent of promising to stay in the 11at until ten the following morning, she decided to do the job wholeheartedly, for Imogene Pamela was one of those lucky and fated young women who can never give themselves b? ha|ves. If happfness_ so much as [ showed Its nose, fT~was her nature C3> tackle blindly for Its waist and go to the mat for the immediate present. Consequently, let not her modesty be misjudged when it Is related that in the short time It took to fill the bath, she accomplished the following: Rooted out Mr. Randolph's best silk pajamas, found his softest bathrobe, filled a hot-water bottle and slipped it far down between the too cold linen sheets of his big bed. Continuing at this rate of achievement, it may be [ imagined that in ten minutes more the young lady, having bathed, was curled up and sound asleep. Not on your life! Item: It took her twenty-one minutes b7 che clock to scrub out the memory of the scabby zinc bathtubs . of many years. Item: Twenty more minutes to wash her hair. Item: Half an hour more to scrub her underwear and stockings. Assorted items: Various pauses during which she nlinnAnlAMnln lnnlrft/1 nt Vlflroalf ?T1 ft fn]l? oiiauiciTsoaijc uc uv-ioti* ?*. length mirror of such pure reflecting qualities as had not crossed her path since England was a pup. After that, a long, entrancing item, called "drying her hair." Did you blame her, three lines back, in your heart for her frequent inspections of self in the mirror? If you did, look at her now! Mr. Randolph's bathrobe is billowed at her waist fcnd tied tight to keep it from trailing on the floor; for almost a like reason, its sleeves are rolled up above her elbows. It is open in a V at the neck, showing the adolescent curve of a virginal but much excited bosom. With a woolly towel in both hands, she plants herself before the staid old looking-glass and gives it such a treat as it has never before savored in its sixty-two years of service to the Randolph family. Rub, rub, rub with the towel. Her cheeks grow pink and pinker, her eyes round and rounder. They twinkle and smile, and once, when she made a little face at herself, they laughed out loud. Her hair slowly wakes from its stringy dampness until it, too, bursts into a sort of light and curly merriment. Pamela puffs out her cheeks and blows at its reflection. When all the rubbing is- done, evsn to the last rite where they divide the fragrant flood into two waves falling over the bosom and mercilessly knead the damp ends between folds of the dryest bit of the towel, she drops that implement and runs into the big room ?U... Annn KlinVff It? wiitjre iiitr ujrmg upcjLi me uiiuuu red eye as though it had been waiting up for her. The writer?who is privileged, for the benefit of a large and growing public, to see her in his mind's eye as her pink bare feet pad up and down the room, racing every time they come to the home-stretch between the unpeopled grandstand of the couch and the fire, and then doubling suddenly, so that her wide eyes may catch her hair still on the wing, for all the world like a kitten chasing its tail?does herein affirm, by the collective manhood of the earth, that she was altogether lovable and beyond the reach of sullying thought Now let her curl up in the bed and sleep. Slumber meant nothing in Pamela's life. That statement should be taken not in the sense of the common slang of the vulgar, but at its literal face value. What is meant is that when this young lady slept, it was like taking a chunk bodily out of life and . putting it in warm storage. As a consequence, when the old-fashioned clock on the mantel burred a warning that it was thinking of striking the hour of nine in about two minutes, she opened her eyes and wondered through what magic night had been suddenly replaced by broad and smiling day. Not for long did that life-long and accustomed miracle hold her attention, for scarcely had it occurred, through force of habit, to her awakening thought than her startled eyes fell upon the tall, stooped, gray-headed figure of a man, clad in livery, aud standing unstably poised in the doorway of the room. Sis eyes, naturally deep-set, actually protruded from his face as though they were determined to come half-way to meet Pamela's wondering ( (7 "He-he!lo," Stammered the Youn? Lady. nrhc TTa inrtirpfl Htp a solemn raven which has carelessly alighted on a live wire. "He-hello!" stammered the young lady. "Good-morning, miss," said Tomllnson, in sepulchral and censorious tones^ "WbereJft Masterjaot^rtjr- ,