NEW YORK THE CENTURY CO. 1919 Copyright, 1919, by The Century Co. Copyright, 1919, by Today's Housewife Published, October, 1919 TO MRS. HENRY FERRE CUTLER WITH HAPPY MEMORIES OF FLORENCE...

The little city of Devondale, Ohio, had shaken off for one night at least the air of aristocratic calm that normally distinguished it from the busy mill towns on its right and left. Elm Avenue, its leading residence street, usually presented at this hour only an effect of watchful trees, dark shrubbery, shaded lamps, and remote domestic peace. Now, however, it had blossomed into a brilliant thoroughfare, full of light, color, and movement, on all of which the December stars winked down as if in

Rodney Bangs, author of "The Black Pearl" and co-author of "The Man Above," was annoyed. When Mr. Bangs was annoyed he usually betrayed the fact, for his was an open nature. He was betraying it now. His clear, red-brown eyes were clouded. The healthy pink of his youthful cheeks had deepened to an unbecoming flush. His wide, engaging grin, the grin of a friendly bulldog, was lacking, and his lips were set tight. Even his burnished red pomadour added to the general pugnaciousness of his appearance

Laurie thought much that day about the girl in the mirror, and he was again home at eleven that night, to the wonder of Mr. Bangs, who freely expressed his surprise. "Something pleasant been coming your way?" he tactfully asked. Laurie evaded the question, but he felt that something definitely pleasant had come his way. This something was a new interest, and he had needed a new interest very much. He hoped he would dream of the girl that night, but as he and Bangs unwisely consumed a Welsh rabbi

On their way to the restaurant Laurie had selected he chatted to his companion in his buoyant, irresponsible fashion, but he had put through the details of the episode with tact and delicacy. He knew that in front of a club two doors away from the studio building a short line of taxicabs was always waiting, with the vast patience of their kind. A gesture brought one of these to the door, and when it had squawked its way around the corner, the girl remained in its shelter until Laurie had briefly

The man in the shabby blue-serge suit detached his absent gaze from the opposite wall, and looked up quickly when Laurie stopped at his side. He was clearly surprised, but courteous. He half rose from his chair, but the new-comer waved him back and dropped easily into the vacant seat opposite him. He was smiling. The man in blue serge was not. He looked puzzled, though vaguely responsive. A third person, watching the two, might almost have thought the episode the casual reunion of men who freque

Laurie walked across the square to his own rooms. A sudden gloom had fallen upon him. He saw himself sitting in his study, gazing remotely at his shoes, until it was time to dress for the evening and his formal call on Doris. The prospect was not attractive. He hoped Bangs would be at home. If so, perhaps he could goad him into one of the rages in which Bangs was so picturesque; but he was not sure of even this mild diversion. Rodney had been wonderfully sweet-tempered the past three days, thoug

At eight o'clock Laurie found Doris sitting under the shade of a reading-lamp in her studio, deep in the pages of a sophisticated French novel and radiating an almost oppressive atmosphere of well-being. Subconsciously, he resented this. His mood was keyed to tragedy. But he returned her half-serious, half-mocking smile with one as enigmatic, shook hands with grave formality, and surveyed with mild interest a modest heap of bank-notes of small denominations that lay on the table, catching the ro

The next morning Laurie awoke from troubled dreams with a vague feeling that life was getting a rise out of him, a feeling that the absent morning greeting of Rodney Bangs did not help to dissipate. Without realizing it, young Devon had rather sunned himself in the adulation of his chum. When this adulation was removed, he missed it; and for the present, at least, there was no question that adulation was lacking. Not that Bangs failed in any of the outward forms of friendship, but his manner had

That evening Laurie walked across the square to Doris's studio with a decision in his stride which definitely expressed his mental attitude. He had come to the conclusion that something must be done. What this something would be was still hazy in his mind, but the first step at least seemed clear. Doris must move. He was so convinced of the urgency of this step that he brought up the subject almost before the greetings of guest and hostess were over. Tossing his hat and coat on a convenient chai

The walk was not the brief excursion Herbert Ransome Shaw had promised. It was fifteen minutes before he stopped in front of a tall building, which looked like an out-of-date storehouse, and thrust a latch-key into a dingy door. The bolt was old and rusty. Shaw fumbled with it for half a minute before it yielded. Then it grudgingly slipped back, and Laurie followed his guide into a dark hall, which was cold and damp. "They don't heat this building." The voice of Shaw came out of the darkness. He

When Laurie opened his eyes blackness was still around him, a blackness without a point of light. But as his mind slowly cleared, the picture he saw in his last conscious moment flashed across his mental vision—the dim, firelit room, the struggling, straining figures of Shaw and the blond secretary. He heard again the hissed caution, "Not too much of that!" He sat up, dizzily. There had been "too much of that." He felt faint and mildly nauseated. His hands, groping in the darkness, came in conta

Within five minutes he was in the studio building across the square, frantically punching the elevator bell. Outwardly he showed no signs of the anxiety that racked him, but presented to Sam, when that appreciative youth stopped his elevator at the ground floor, the sartorial perfection which Sam always vastly admired and sometimes dreamed of imitating. But for such perfection Sam had no eyes to-day. At this early hour—it was not much more than half-past eight—he had brought down only two passen

Less than half a mile back, along the main road, Laurie found a country garage, in which he left his car. It was in charge of a silent but intelligent person, a somewhat unkempt and haggard middle-aged man, who agreed to keep the machine out of sight, to have it ready at any moment of the day or night, and to accept a handsome addition to his regular charge in return for his discretion. He was only mildly interested in his new patron, for he had classified him without effort. One of them college

Laurie shook his head. "That was rather stupid of him," he remarked, mildly. "It's almost as easy to force open a locked door from the inside as from the outside." "I know." Doris was again breathless. "But in the meantime he's telephoning to Shaw." "I don't think so." Laurie, his hands in his pockets, was making a characteristic turn around the room. "What has he to gain by telephoning? Shaw's coming back anyway in a few hours; and in the meantime the secretary has got me safely pocketed, or th

At the garage he found Burke faithful to his trust and with an alert eye out for more five-dollar bills. The proprietor temporarily lost sight of these, however, in his sudden and vivid interest in the new patron's appearance. Laurie answered his questions with a word that definitely checked the further development of curiosity. Then, huddling over the stove, and warming his icy, soaked feet, he curtly outlined his intentions. He was going to change back into his own clothes, he explained, and h

Burke, dozing over the fire in his so-called office, was aroused from his dreams by the appearance of a vision. For a moment he blinked at it doubtfully. Then into his eyes came a dawning intelligence, slightly tinged with reproach. Burke was an unimaginative man, who did not like to be jarred out of his routine. Already that day several unusual incidents had occurred; and though, like popular tales, they ended happily, they had been almost too great a stimulus to thought. Now here was another,

The lights of Long Island City greeted them with reassuring winks through the snow. Seeing these, Doris drew a deep breath. She had let her nerves run away with her, she subconsciously felt. Now, rising from the depths of her panic to a realization of contact with a living world, as they crossed the bridge to Manhattan, seeing hurrying men and women about her, hearing the blasts of motor horns and the voices of motor drivers, she fiercely assured herself that she had been an hysterical fool. In

"So Shaw told you!" muttered Epstein a few moments later. "You bet he did!" Laurie blithely corroborated. "He had to, to save his skin. But he was pretty game, I'll give him credit for that. I had to fire one shot past his head to convince him that I meant business. Besides, as I've said, I thought he was reaching for something. I suppose I was a little nervous. Anyway, we clenched again, and—well—I'd have killed him, I guess, if he hadn't spoken." He smiled reminiscently. All three were tactful

From the New York Sun , January 7, 1919:— "Among the patients on the hospital ship Comfort , which arrived yesterday with nine hundred wounded soldiers on board, was Captain Laurence Devon, of the American Flying Forces in France. "Captain Devon was seriously injured in a combat with two German planes, which occurred only forty-eight hours before the signing of the armistice. He brought down both machines and though his own plane was on fire and he was badly wounded, he succeeded in reaching the