Adventure, June 1911 — page 41: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Dad and Destiny her?” she asked. has money?”’ “Oh, no,” he answered quickly. ‘Dad has a bunch of it himself and doesn’t care “Ts it because she has— about that end of it. But you see her father and he were mining partners years ago and made their first big strike together and they have been brothers in business ever since. It seems that when both of us were babies they made it up between them that we were to marry.” “Well, why don’t you marry her? Isn’t she a nice girl?” “Oh, I suppose she’s nice enough—lI’ve never seen her,’”’ he answered. ‘You see, he took care of the Western end, the manu- facturing, and dad ran the advertising and selling in New York, and then when I was fifteen I was packed off to boarding school and later to college and then to Paris to cultivate what I thought was a talent for painting. I have just come home and find that he has it all arranged that I am to marry a girl who probably has as little taste for the thing as I have. He insisted, I objected, there were fire-crackers and I got out.” “Ts that the only reason you didnot want to marry her?” Harold lifted his glance and looked straight into Elaine’s brown eyes. “That was the only reason,’ he said. “““Wase’” she repeated softly, looking out over the waters. “Yes,” he answered, other reason now.” “What is her name?” Elaine asked. Armitage started. ‘‘ You wouldn’t really like me to tell you that, now would you?” he asked quietly. “No,” she answered. “I should think you horrid if you did.” She looked a while at the red dot of the port lantern. Then she turned her eyes in the direction of the thin yellow streamers that escaped from the cabin windows through which escaped also Jake’s gay voice raised in song, and the tinkle of Polly’s vivacious obligato. ‘The other reason ?”’ lashes falling. ‘Why, Elaine, you are the other reason,” he said, looking up at her frankly. “I do not want to be offensive and I haven’t any hope, but it won’t hurt you to know, and perhaps it will help me. If I were any good—if I had been taught how to make a ‘was. There is an- she said softly, her 227 living instead of painting pictures no one ‘would buy—why, I’d try to make you love me and marry me, but— Oh, do not think too little of me, Elaine, because you are a splendid, competent worker of the world, and I am a good-for-nothing. I'll Jearn how—in time.”’ “Your father may relent,” the girl sug- gested, her lashes still brushing her cheeks. “You don’t know my dad,” Harold an- swered, shaking his head. “But I think you can win out alone,” she said, looking up at him suddenly. Harold looked into her face in a frank, level-eyed way he had. “You are right,” he said without the slightest suggestion of a boast in tone or manner, “I can. But,” he added, “‘it wouldn’t be the square thing to ask any girl to bet on me.’ Even in the pale moonlight he could see the cloud of color that surged into her face as she bent her head and whispered: “YT would be willing to bet on you, Harold!” The singing had ceased in the forward cabin. . Jake Buchmuller stepped out on deck, the red tip of his cigar brightening and fading, and the smoke of it curling back over his shoulder. He looked at the little tugboats ahead and then swept a care- less glance back at the barges strung out astern. Something dark against the white hatchcovers, on the port side amidships, arrested his wandering glance. “Ts it one or are it two?” he murmured after a minute of careful scrutiny. “It are two,”’ he answered his own ques- tion a minute later, and discreetly turned his eyes ahead. “That young man,” he remarked con- fidentially to the hawser-ring at his feet, “is some rapid, even if his name is Harold. In ten minutes he makes a life-long friend of me and now he’s kissing the Captain of this blooming ship!” Having delivered himself of which Jake went below and turned in. ALL the way up the river Mr. Buchmuller’s crowning jov was the enthusiasm of Polly. That young lady was just bursting with information concerning the canal-boat trade, and Jake drank it in as the dry earth drinks up the Summer showers. ‘“‘Now what was it you told me you were Go DOOKS ANUC (C@