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PAGE 5

Mr. Jack Hamlin’s Mediation
by [?]

Jack looked down. After a pause he lifted his lashes towards her draggled skirt, and said in an easier, conversational tone, “Yes! I thought I knew that dress. I gave it to you for that walking scene in ‘High Life,’ didn’t I?”

“No,” she said quickly, “it was the blue one with silver trimming,–don’t you remember? I tried to turn it the first year I was married, but it never looked the same.”

“It was sweetly pretty,” said Jack encouragingly, “and with that blue hat lined with silver, it was just fetching! Somehow I don’t quite remember this one,” and he looked at it critically.

“I had it at the races in ’58, and that supper Judge Boompointer gave us at ‘Frisco where Colonel Fish upset the table trying to get at Jim. Do you know,” she said, with a little laugh, “it’s got the stains of the champagne on it yet; it never would come off. See!” and she held the candle with great animation to the breadth of silk before her.

“And there’s more of it on the sleeve,” said Jack; “isn’t there?”

Mrs. Rylands looked reproachfully at Jack.

“That isn’t champagne; don’t you know what it is?”

“No!”

“It’s blood,” she said gravely; “when that Mexican cut poor Ned so bad,–don’t you remember? I held his head upon my arm while you bandaged him.” She heaved a little sigh, and then added, with a faint laugh, “That’s the worst thing about the clothes of a girl in the profession, they get spoiled or stained before they wear out.”

This large truth did not seem to impress Mr. Hamlin. “Why did you leave Santa Clara?” he said abruptly, in his previous critical tone.

“Because of the folks there. They were standoffish and ugly. You see, Josh”–

“Who?”

“Josh Rylands!–HIM! He told everybody who I was, even those who had never seen me in the bills,–how good I was to marry him, how he had faith in me and wasn’t ashamed,–until they didn’t believe we were married at all. So they looked another way when they met us, and didn’t call. And all the while I was glad they didn’t, but he wouldn’t believe it, and allowed I was pining on account of it.”

“And were you?”

“I swear to God, Jack, I’d have been content, and more, to have been just there with him, seein’ nobody, letting every one believe I was dead and gone, but he said it was wrong, and weak! Maybe it was,” she added, with a shy, interrogating look at Jack, of which, however, he took no notice. “Then when he found they wouldn’t call, what do you think he did?”

“Beat you, perhaps,” suggested Jack cheerfully.

“He never did a thing to me that wasn’t straight out, square, and kind,” she said, half indignantly, half hopelessly. “He thought if HIS kind of people wouldn’t see me, I might like to see my own sort. So without saying anything to me, he brought down, of all things! Tinkie Clifford, she that used to dance in the cheap variety shows at ‘Frisco, and her particular friend, Captain Sykes. It would have just killed you, Jack,” she said, with a sudden hysteric burst of laughter, “to have seen Josh, in his square, straight-out way, trying to be civil and help things along. But,” she went on, as suddenly relapsing into her former attitude of worried appeal, “I couldn’t stand it, and when she got to talking free and easy before Josh, and Captain Sykes to guzzling champagne, she and me had a row. She allowed I was putting on airs, and I made her walk, in spite of Josh.”

“And Josh seemed to like it,” said Hamlin carelessly. “Has he seen her since?”

“No; I reckon he’s cured of asking that kind of company for me. And then we came here. But I persuaded him not to begin by going round telling people who I was,–as he did the last time,–but to leave it to folks to find out if they wanted to, and he gave in. Then he let me fix up this house and furnish it my own way, and I did!”