Photoplay (Jan - Jun 1919)

58 Photoplay Magazine A moment more and the girl, with only the thinnest of wraps about her nightgowned shoulders, had opened the door and stood confronting the beast. sold me. [—that is to say — the truth is, sub, that several years ago, when money was easier than it has been since these damned Huns broke forth. 1 put a pretty large mortgage on this place. The original owner died, and it passed on. The next owner transferred it. And so on. Mv lawyer— Judge Tabor, suh— informs me that (lie scoundrels who've gol it now, whoever they may be, want to foreclose!" "You mean," interrupted Luce, with an access of easy insolence, "that you're behind in your interest. That's why they want to foreclose.'' "Mv affairs, suh." bristled Cameron, "are my affairs!" "Exactly, Colonel. You're getting right to my point. You're an old man — " "Nol so damned old. suh!" "Of course not — right to my point again! You're just getting to the age where a man of your physical vigor and fine mentality ought to enjoy life — enjoy it thoroughly! The paltry little .welve thousand you put in my oil stock means nothing to me You can have it tomorrow — -now. if you say so — but honestly, Colonel, I couldn't be more deeply interested if you were my own father. Hold on to that stock six months, three months — and you've a competence, a fortune, for all the rest of your years. For Lucille it means — "Miss Cameron, suh!'' "I beg your pardon. For Miss Cameron it means travel, education, every advantage that any girl in the world may ask!" Cameron's eyes and his head fell The fingers of his long white hand nervously tapped the pattern of his trousers. Luce had won And just then a surprising victory happened on the lawn. In the drawing of the raffle. Lucille had won her own horse! She was ashamed to accept— delighted that Southern Pride was not leaving the famih . In her happy confusion she ran to her father. "It was Mr. Luce's tickets that kept Southern Pride for me," she murmured. Colonel Cameron smiled, and put out his hand to Luce. Meanwhile, the Cameron estate was the chief subject of discussion at that very instant in Judge Tabor's sober, ill-fashioned little office on the main street of Cameronville. The old jurist, in the rusty suit of solemn black he had worn a dozen years, faced a handsome boy whose khaki shoulders were crossed by single bars of silver. A wound stripe told, too, that Gregory Haines had been invalided home from France. 'And that's the story of the family." Tabor was concluding. "A high spirited, proud old man — a girl that — a true Southern girl, sir. We don't say more when we want to compliment a girl down here." "Then do me a favor." returned Lieut. Haines, "and say nothing about this mortgage now 'What? You've told them . . . well, tell them that vou were mistaken; the holder doesn't want to foreclose after all. Uncle William is dead. He might have finished the proceedings, but I won't. An old man , . a young girl. . . . I'm going back, and I may not come home — you see. don't you?" The boy rose, as if the argument were finished. "I see you're white, all the way through!" answered Judge Tabor, with vigor. "You must meet them, anyway, and see the place. It's a great old estate. I think it was your uncle's intention to put it right in your hands, but the stroke took him before I had started the action. Come along, sir!" So Oregon Haines met Lucille Cameron. A few minutes before. Luce had left the premises. At the turn of the road Jack Schuyler, his henchman, waited "him. a furtive, anxious smile on his weak but not vicious face. "Easy as selling hop to a Chinaman!" "Two minutes of big bull on his oil stock, and you couldn't have pried the old man away from it with a crow-bar!" "Been tough if he had struck for a refund, though," laughed Schuyler; "I've only got fifteen bucks left." "You're rich." returned Luce. "That cute little chicken trimmed me till all I've got is ten ones — but they look like a roll, at that." Three people neared Cameron House. Two of them were Judge Tabor and his friend and sub-rosa client. Oregon' Haines. The third was Johnny Tweed, a down-and-out jockey. ejaculated Luce.