FullReads

“‘Annihilating all that’s made
To a green thought in a green shade.'”

“Wait a minute,” said the visitor, and made a note on an envelope-back.

“Accordingly, Miss Barbran, the daughter and heiress of a millionaire cattle owner in Wyoming [here the reporter made his second note], has established this center where we meet to renew and refresh our souls.”

“Good!” said the benevolent reporter. “Fine! Of course it’s all bunk–“

“Bunk!” echoed Barbran and Phil, aghast, while Cyrus sat with his lank jaw drooping.

“You don’t see any of your favorite color in my eye, do you?” inquired the visitor pleasantly. “Just what you’re putting over I don’t know. Some kind of new grease paint, perhaps. Don’t tell me. It’s good enough, anyway. I’ll fall for it. It’s worth a page story. Of course I’ll want some photographs of the mural paintings. They’re almost painfully beautiful…. What’s wrong with our young friend; is he sick?” he added, looking with astonishment at Phil Stacey who was exhibiting sub-nauseous symptoms.

“He painted ’em,” explained Cyrus, grinning.

“And he’s sorry,” supplemented Barbran.

“Yes; I wouldn’t wonder. Well, I won’t give him away,” said the kindly journalist. “Now, as to the membership of your circle….”

The Sunday “story” covered a full page. The “millionairess” feature was played up conspicuously and repeatedly, and the illustrations did what little the text failed to do. It was a “josh-story” from beginning to end.

“I’ll kill that pious fraud of a reporter,” declared Phil.

“Now the place is ruined,” mourned Barbran.

“Wait and see,” advised the wiser Cyrus.

Great is the power of publicity. The Wrightery was swamped with custom on the Monday evening following publication, and for the rest of that week and the succeeding week.

“I never was good at figures,” said the transported Barbran to Phil Stacey at the close of the month, “but as near as I can make out, I’ve a clear profit of eight dollars and seventy cents. My fortune is made. And it’s all due to you.”

Had the Bonnie Lassie been able to hold her painted retainers in line, the owner’s golden prophecy might have been made good. But they had other matters on hand for their evenings than sitting about in a dim cellar gazing cross-eyed at their own scandalous noses. MacLachan was the first defection. He said that he thought he was going crazy and he knew he was going blind. The Little Red Doctor was unreliable owing to the pressure of professional calls. He complained with some justice that a green nose on a practicing physician tended to impair confidence. Then Leon Coventry went away, and Boggs discovered (or invented) an important engagement with a growing family of clothes-moths in a Connecticut country house. So there remained only the faithful Phil. One swallow does not make a summer; nor does one youth with a vernal proboscis convince a skeptical public that it is enjoying the fearful companionship of a subversive and revolutionary cult. Patronage ebbed out as fast as it had flooded in. Barbran’s eyes were as soft and happy as ever in the evenings, when she and Phil sat in a less and less interrupted solitude. But in the mornings palpable fear stalked her. Phil never saw it. He was preoccupied with a dread of his own.

One evening of howling wind and hammering rain, when all was cosy and home-like for two in the little firelit Wrightery, she nerved herself up to facing the facts.

“It’s going to be a failure,” she said dismally.

“Then you’re going away?” he asked, trying to keep his voice from quaking.

She set her little chin quite firmly. “Not while there’s a chance left of pulling it out.”

“Well; it doesn’t matter as far as I’m concerned,” he muttered. “I’m going away myself.”

“You?” She sat up very straight and startled. “Where?”

“Kansas City.”

“Oh! What for?”

“Do you remember a fat old grandpa who was here last month and came back to ask about the decorations?”

“Yes.”

“He’s built him a new house–he calls it a mansion–and he wants me to paint the music-room. He likes”–Phil gulped a little–“my style of art.”