The Argosy, August 1914 — page 115: what you’re looking at

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

CHAP TER= I. OUTSIDE THE DOOR. T began brilliantly, this culminating evening in the fortunes of David Grelthorpe, giving no hint of the catastrophe with which it was to close. As Grelthorpe, iron-jawed and steely eyed, looked from one to another of the little group gathered about his table, faultlessly attired in silk and broad- cloth, their jewels gleaming.in the soit light of the big dining-room, his glance reflected a supreme feeling of pleasure under the shaggy brows. Shifting his gaze from guest to guest, it met that of his wife, sparkling happily into his, with a joy no whit inferior to his own. For the Grelthorpes it was the day of days, the triumph of triumphs, the dawn of a new era in their lives. The subdued hum of conversation round them was the sweet music of victory— victory purchased at a huge cost of toil and scheming and heartache—but why should they remember such things in presence of the concrete fact that they had won? For the Grelthorpes were the very pink and flower of social climbers. In David Grelthorpe’s eyes (some bitter tongue had said) life was a game of chess in which self-respect was the first pawn sacrificed. For fully fifteen years he had 105 fought for social eminence; nor had his upward struggle been less arduous than that of the majority of climbers not wanted at the top of the social lad- der. David had many times had rea- son to note how obstacles spring up in the path of those grimly determined to overcome them, whereas the paths of those bent on nothing of the sort are, with galling frequency, boulevards strewn with roses, macadamized, and decorated with arc-lights at regular in- tervals. David Grelthorpe, in his cam- paign for social recognition, seemed for years to carry a large, illuminated sign on his forehead, reading “ Plant fist here.”’ But his courage—and that-of his no less determined wife—had been more than equal to the resentments and an- tagonisms which his upward climb roused. Cold, masterful, lavish with his millions, hiding every hurt from those inflicting it, rendered doubly stubborn by resistance, he had pushed doggedly onward step by step. And it may be truthfully said that, on the evening when this story opens, he was to be pardoned if he looked back upon fifteen years of sneers and snubs as not spent in vain. For that littl group about his board, in the rosy light of the shaded lamps, was well calculated to warm the soul of a climber and make him glow with satisfaction. TOO (C@) (C@