Atlanta Daily World

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STRINGS

By EDWINA L. MAC DONALD

COPYRIGHT 1932 BY KING FEATURES SYNDICATE, INC.

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

Pat had ceased entirely to think of her own problem. She and Dadums would go to Jacksonville. She didn't care to think any further than that. She'd know by that time what she was going to do. It was the way of her mind to lie fallow, apparently in abeyance for a time, then sharply to unroll the pattern of its subconscious workings, complete to the last detail, clear and unalterable.

The pattern unrolled between the high diving board and the water . . . With the water coming up to meet her she made her decision. Settled the entire question.

She swam to the top, climbed out and went to her locker, put on her traveling clothes. Their trunks were already at the station. She dressed hurriedly, her mind entirely cleared of the debris of battle. Indecision gone—A perfectly simple plan . . . So obviously the only possible decision.

My heavens! Why didn't I think of that in the first place? As Dadums says, indecision is a devil of the mind. Decide—and the whole thing clears up. And, of course, there's never anything to decide because there's only one right way. I knew what was right. I'd have saved myself a good deal of agony if I hadn't battled. I'd probably have thought right away of—this.

Her father was sitting on the veranda. She went to him with a little skipping walk.

"Mr. Braithwait, sir," she said. "I'm sailing on the Majestic for Paris on the fourteenth and I'm looking for a gentleman companion—refined, gentle nature, good character—would you like to come along?"

"You pay all expenses?" he asked calmly, eyes twinkling.

"All expenses. But I require references."

"May I refer you to Miss Patricia Braithwait, in whose service I have been for twenty years?"

Their first battle had ended in their accustomed banter.

Several mothers seated on the veranda listened smilingly to the flippant conversation, having their opinion, however, of a girl who ordered her father to Paris thuswise.

Patricia went in and wrote a note to Jimmie, addressing it to The Flamingo. She was going to Paris, she told him. But as soon as Aunt Pam got her divorce he was to come for her.

She explained about the money question, adding: "Of course when I'm your wife he can't object to my taking your money, nor can he refuse to keep his own."

She felt a perfect fool that she hadn't thought of this in the first place.

Dadums came to say it was near train time.

The station being separated from the hotel only by its own magnificent grounds, guests stroll down to the afternoon train to see if any friends from Miami are on their way north. The platform was crowded. Patricia's crowd was there. And Pamela, lovely, indolent, smiling. Everybody was asking about Jack Laurence.

The train pulled in—and Jack stepped off.

He was immaculate; but a dark bruise decorated one eye. He had an ugly cut on the chin and one jaw was noticeably enlarged. But he looked happy—with the happiness of long gone ancestors, which even Patricia's departure could not dim.

The younger crowd fell upon him, demanding to know what had happened.

"I was out in a car with a chap in Miami," he grinned. "We had a little accident. Nothing much."

"Wasn't the other man hurt?"

"Some. But he'll recover."

Patricia was mad. She was mad at Jack for hurting Jimmie. Also, she was mad at Jimmie because Jack had hurt him. But she couldn't help smiling. To be revenged, however, she did not confide her change of plans to him till she was on the train.

"Maybe we'll see you in Paris, Jack," she called from the car window. "Dadums and I are sailing on the fourteenth."

All at once, his face looked like a battered lighthouse. Patricia fell to laughing.

"Pronto," he called.

The train was moving. Everybody waving.

Almost beside Aunt Pam and Jack stood Mrs. Brownley, a picture in sand. Patricia's gaze traveled from Jack's happy battered countenance to the face of the woman, serene and smiling: on to the charming dark beauty of Aunt Pam.

The train was gathering speed. Patricia strained to see them. Jack was no longer looking. His dark head was downbent to Mrs. Brownley as if he were speaking to her.

A sharp premonitory flash, an inexplicable uneasiness assailed the excited girl—to be dramatically recollected a year later.

"Countess, will you open the door, please," said Patricia to an oldish woman in young attire and much paint who sat near the door. "It's probably Jack."

The Countess, an American ex-wife of a Russian Count, rose from the floor with as much exuberance as was permitted by her four feet two of one hundred and fifty pounds (in spite of meals restrained by finances).

"Hello, Jack!" they called in the chorus of an established entente cordiale.

"Come get a cup of tea," said Patricia. "The biscuits are all gone."

"No thanks. Too near dinner time. I came to carry you off to the Cafe Madrid for dinner. It's a perfect night for dinner in the open."

"Hear the words of the filthy rich," groaned Pendleton, correspondent for the Herald.

They demanded to know if Jack had ever eaten dinner at the Cafe Madrid. Had he just robbed a bank or what ...

"I'll have to change my dress if we are going to the Madrid," Patricia said. "Don't go, anybody. Stay as long as you like, and slam the door as you go out."

Some two months after the establishment of the Braithwaits in Montparnasse they had produced Jack Laurence. And the Quarter had accepted him after its casual fashion. Of course, they all knew his story through the papers, and they knew he was the scion of a rich family. Why he was living modestly in Montparnasse they did not know. Nor care. He could always lend a few francs and never bothered to ask it back; but he affected no swank, and they liked him. Supposedly extending his studies in architecture, he was also devoting a good deal of time to Patricia Braithwait. Many believed there was more to the affair than appeared on the surface.

"Let's all chip in and get some stuff from the delicatessen and have dinner here," suggested the Countess brightly. "I'll make fresh tea."

The suggestion was hailed enthusiastically, and it being agreed that everybody chip in five francs, Pendleton passed the hat. It developed that the Countess had left her money in her other purse, and Jack put in five francs for her. The Countess went with Pendleton to purchase supplies.

Patricia returned in a bouffant frock of turquoise lace and a silver cloth cape. They exclaimed loudly at sight of her.

With the careless informality which is "good form" in the Quarter, Patricia left her guests to their own devices, imposing only two injunctions ... Be sure to slam the door ... and don't drop salami or liverwurst on my lovely rose rug. ... Give Dadums some tea when he comes in and tell him to go on to dinner.

It was amazing how easily and quickly she had slid from the life of the luxurious lotus eaters of Palm Beach's fashionable colony into the life of those tattered lotus eaters of Montparnasse.

In the Quarter a tiny seed of friendship is dropped between the tables of The Dome, in an exchange of smiles over the rugman, or the beadwoman, or a sidewalk performer; the seed springs up in words, and reaches full flower before the stars have closed their eyes on the sidewalk cafes. Tomorrow evening—well, perhaps one more—and one knows not only the luminaries of Montparnasse, but many whose fame has never percolated beyond it.

(To Be Continued)

1932, by King Features Syndicate, Inc.