The Argosy, Vol. 75, No. 4 — page 43: what you’re looking at

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

wi" \\ Ay , lions. MESQUITE RANCH. hall he felt it necessary to explain away the impression that. Bullen’s actions must have created. “You would think I had injured him in some way, Miss Thorpe,” he ob- served. ‘He does seem to get excited when you come in, Mr. Radford,” the nurse replied. “TI can’t see why. [I haven’t done him any wrong in the world,” Ted pro- tested. : ‘‘ Sick people have strange fancies,’ said Miss Thorpe noncomumnittally. But Ted received the impression that Miss Thorpe placed more credence in Bullen’s actions than in his own words; and she hurried to the telephone in the hall to call Stratton before he could do anything to correct her idea. Another experience awaited him, scarcely less disagreeable. He had an engagement to join Bess and take her to something or other. It had been sub- stituted for the call he had asked to make, during which he meant to lay the unpleasant state of affairs before Bess. But she had other uses for her time and him, it appeared later. With Mrs. Hetherington chaperon- ing and wholly blocking any effort he might make to get Bess alone and tell her something of his affairs, he was dragged to a Thé Dansant where half of society was rounded up before de- parting for new dissipations in_ the country. He could see that Mrs. ‘Hetherington was reveling splendidly in trailing him about since he was shining with the enhanced brilliancy due to his mother’s multimillionaire marriage. In spite of himself, he enjoyed the thought of discomfiture which would come to the ambitious Mrs. Hethering- ton when she found that she had really displayed a penniless dependent, in- stead of a rich man, heir to more mil- But he had not the slightest opportunity to let Bess in on the secret of his amusement. Indeed, the fun was subtly squeezed from the situation when he thought of telling her. . prospects. 745 Another day passed, and he was still, in the eyes of the world and his fiancée, rich young Radford with Barrington At three o'clock in the afternoon a messenger from Mr. Marsh brought a small parcel of papers to him. He was in the library when they came, and, without looking at them, he signed the receipt and thrust them into his coat-pocket. He was in no mood to read over the worthless documents which merely emphasized his poverty by contrasting it with the affluence which the papers were probably intended to have repre- sented. A wire came within two hours from his mother, telling him that Bess was coming out to Cressymere for a visit and for him to come at once. He had his things put into a suit-case, ordered his roadster, and started, but without any agreeable anticipations, out to the millionaire’s estate. The visit would afford him a chance to talk with his mother, to tell her that he could not bring himself to be a de- pendent on her husband, and an oppor- tunity to tell Bess how things really stood. At half past five Miss Thorpe, seeing her patient asleep, started out for a short walk. But Natalie met her al- most at the door; and her constitutional became a brief fifteen-minute affair be- cause beauty-loving Natalie begged her to return to the Fifth Avenue house and give her a glimpse of its luxury. Miss Thorpe returned to Bullen’s room when she had sent Natalie home. It was deserted. Though Bullen was much stronger, and had even insisted on being dressed, the empty bed where he had been stretched when she left filled her with alarm. He might have tried his legs by walking in the halls. She ran out and looked for him on the floor where he had roomed, on the one below, even through the intricacies of the back halls, when she noticed a door from the back stairs ajar. But -he was nowhere to be found. COMMICGLOOOKS GO!