A Star for a Night Part 2

As the procession started toward the waiting car, Gordon, who followed close by the English actress, inquired:

"Where shall we go to-day?"

"Really, I don't think we shall have room for you to-day, Sanford," said Mrs. Dainton, somewhat coldly, pausing at the top of the steps while the maids, a.s.sisted by the footman and Victor, helped Fuzzy-Wuzzy tenderly into the car.

"That's what you have said for the past three days," Gordon cried tensely. "And yet I brought my own machine and my own chauffeur out here from New York just to please you."

"And you are pleasing me a great deal, Sanford, by letting me go alone."

"Will nothing I do ever move you?" inquired Gordon. Then, as he saw she was more interested in the way Johanna was holding the Pomeranian, he added fiercely: "Once you would have answered differently."

Mrs. Dainton turned on him, her manner a strange mingling of sadness and regret.

"Ah, yes, once," she said softly. "I loved you then without any thought of the future, and I have paid for it with many, many bitter years of repentance. Now, after all these years--years when you seemed to have forgotten my very existence and the thing which you had once called love--I return to America, praised and honored by those who in the old days had treated me so lightly, you among the rest."

"That's not true," broke in Gordon. "I always loved you."

"But we parted," continued Mrs. Dainton, bitterly. "And if I had returned, needing your help instead of being able to reject all that you can give, would you have come to me again?"

"You know I should have."

"No, Sanford, we seek only that which is beyond our reach," she said softly, laying her hand on his arm. "The candle has burned out. Do not try to relight it. I have been only an incident in your life--"

"That's not true."

"Don't you suppose I know about the others?"

"They were nothing to me. It was you, always you."

"One who has been through the mill doesn't care to be crushed by the mill-stones a second time. Take my advice, Sanford--return to New York, seek out some nice young girl, and marry her."

"Never!"

"Really!" Mrs. Dainton laughed lightly as she ran down the steps and was helped into the car by the vigilant Victor. "Ta-ta, Sanford, I'll see you to-morrow, or the day after." And in another moment the big, red touring-car had whirled away, leaving upon the steps the solitary figure of a tall, dark, good-looking chap of uncertain age, who clenched his hands tightly, then turned suddenly as a bell-boy pa.s.sed along the veranda.

"Boy!"

"Yes, sir."

"Tell my valet to pack up at once. I'm leaving for New York to-night."

"Yes, sir. Very good, sir," closing a responsive palm. "Thank you, sir."

CHAPTER III

INTRODUCING MARTHA FARNUM

In the cosmopolitan atmosphere of any famous health resort, strangely contrasting types are often found. Amid the vain, the foolish, the inebriates and the idle who flocked to the Springs for amus.e.m.e.nt and diversion, there were a few who really came to seek health. For three months, the gay pa.s.sers-by on the shaded walks near the hotel had noticed one such, an elderly lady, feeble, gray-haired, evidently recovering from a severe illness, who invariably occupied a wheel-chair, the motive power for which was furnished by a most attractive young girl always clad in simple black. The girl was about nineteen, slender, graceful, with the clear and partly sunburnt complexion which comes from life spent much in the open air. Her eyes and hair were brown--her eyes large and wistful, her hair light and wavy. She wore no jewelry, and there was no suggestion of color about her costume. Yet there seemed a certain lightness and gayety in her face which conveyed the impression that sadness was not a component factor in her life. She smiled as, hour after hour, she read to the invalid on the veranda, and seemed actually to enjoy her task of wheeling the chair back and forth to the Springs in the rear of the hotel.

Once, when a traveling man who had strayed down to the Springs for a weekend offered the front clerk a cheap cigar and expressed curiosity as to the name of the young lady, that obliging encyclopedia explained:

"Oh, that's Miss Farnum. She's old Mrs. Kilpatrick's companion. No, not a nurse--sort of poor relative, I guess."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "OH, THAT'S MISS FARNUM. SHE'S OLD MRS. KILPATRICK'S COMPANION."]

Whereupon the aforesaid traveling gentleman, disappointed at the obvious impossibility of a chance to speak to Miss Farnum, whistled and said:

"Anyhow, she's deuced pretty. I'd like to see her wearing a real gown."

Martha's constant adherence to simple black gowns, however, was due to two reasons. She wanted every one to know that she was there simply as a companion: it saved her the necessity of pretending, for other girls of her own age, guests of the hotel, made no advances of a social nature which would have required reciprocity. Additionally, and even more important, black was inexpensive and durable.

For three months, now, Martha Farnum had been the companion of Mrs.

Kilpatrick, a wealthy invalid from Marion, a small town near Indianapolis. Mrs. Kilpatrick was suffering from sciatic rheumatism, and her physician had recommended a stay at the Springs. To her objection that both her sons were too busy to accompany her, and that she knew no one else who could act as a companion, the doctor had replied:

"I know a person who will be ideal. Her name is Farnum; she's the daughter of an old friend of mine who has been in hard luck for three years. Lives on a farm near here. Martha is the eldest girl in a family of seven, and I know she'll jump at the chance. You'll find her modest, well-bred and well-educated, with just two faults"--he smiled at Mrs.

Kilpatrick's hesitation--"she's very pretty and very poor."

Martha had been sent for, the arrangements made, and she found herself for the first time in her life living at a real hotel, with all her expenses paid and thirty-five dollars a month besides. Her duties were not arduous, for the hotel servants attended to most of Mrs.

Kilpatrick's wants. She, however, read to the invalid, talked, laughed, sang, pushed the chair around the beautiful walks, and dined with her.

Every afternoon, while Mrs. Kilpatrick took a nap, Martha was free.

At first the hotel life dazzled her. It almost stunned her. The transition from life on their humble farm, with all its privations and discomforts, to what seemed to her a fairyland of lights, music, beautiful gowns and jewels, and the wasteful extravagance and display of wealth, seemed unreal and impossible. Back on the farm, as the eldest of a family of seven, she had worked, endured--and hoped. But in her wildest dreams she had never imagined such a beautiful escape. No one at home had had the imagination to understand her. No one, unless perhaps her father, had even sympathized with her in her dismay, when the panic three years before had forced the little town bank to close, and a hail-storm that same summer ruined their crops. For before that they had intended to send her away to boarding-school at Logansport; she had even pa.s.sed her entrance examinations. Then, all that had to be forgotten in the poverty that had followed.

Now, for the first time, Martha was seeing _life_. It was new to her; it frightened her, but still she was learning to love it.

Mrs. Kilpatrick had been kind, and had grown to be genuinely fond of her. Thus it was with a touch of sadness that she stopped Martha pus.h.i.+ng the chair up and down the veranda this same autumn afternoon, and mentioned a subject which she had persistently ignored for three days.

"Martha, dear, let me speak with you," said Mrs. Kilpatrick, suddenly.

"Bring up your chair," she added.

"The doctor has told me," continued Mrs. Kilpatrick, "that he thinks a sea voyage will be beneficial. He suggests that I spend the coming winter in some warm climate, preferably Italy, and I have decided to do so."

Although uncertain as to just how it affected her, Martha could not restrain her pleasure and excitement at the possible thought of going.

She clasped her hands convulsively, her eyes lighted up with antic.i.p.ation, and she cried gladly:

"Lovely! And am I to go, too?"

Mrs. Kilpatrick shook her head. "My dear child," she said sadly, "I am sorry, but I shall be unable to take you. My sister, who is in New York, is to accompany me," she explained. "I'm afraid I shall have to let you return home this week. Unless," she added, "you can get something else to do."

"I must. I will. To return home now would be to admit defeat. I'll never do that. And we're all so dreadfully poor. I haven't any right to impose myself on them, now that I've commenced to earn my own living."

"Perhaps the doctor can suggest another position for you, child," said Mrs. Kilpatrick.

"Perhaps. Anyway, I must make my own living," declared Martha, with conviction. "Other girls are doing it; I ought to be able to. I'll go to New York or Chicago or some other big city, and I'll work at--at something or other," she concluded, rather lamely.