Picture Play Magazine (Oct-Nov 1915)

PICTURE-PLAY WEEKLY 27 til ; pot een taking care of those silly little lands for ten years now. Surely you pfen't going to hold yourself responsible for them forever?" i -Why not?" Because you told me in Manila that ou were going to outgrow them now, nd — get away!" "Oh, yes ; I remember I told you that t Manila. But now and here" — he had uddenly become serious again — "Miss 3urant, I'm not so sure that I hadn't ktter keep on there, after all. ' " 'Now and here ?' Lieutenant Som rtners." "Yes ; now and here a great many 1 hings come a great deal differently to me, don't they?" "I can't see what you mean ! What, tor instance?" "'Well, now it looks as if I might lave been doing a good deal more down ibout Bagol than I was, and — I might still stay down there quite a while Without finding myself too hopelessly f'pig for the place, mightn't I?" Frances made no reply. "And here" — he glanced eloquently a 'about the great, handsome room, and through the portieres to the rich rooms ^Ebeyond — "it certainly begins to seem ■more than a little presumptuous and assuming for me to leave Bagol for — for the purpose I boasted at Manila! Doesn't it?" "The natives in Bagol suddenly got arms from somewhere, the papers say," ' Frances returned. J !! "That caused the uprising. They must have been smuggled in after you left. So your successor was to blame I for that, not you." "No. I should have prevented the first communications which got them the arms. And I thought I did. "I thought, except for Mr. Pinckney's party, that no one landed with' out my knowing it. However, coming here has made me see that I still belong about Bagol; it has brought to me a good deal clearer, too, how absurd it was for me to think I could so quickly qualify myself for more than a very faint friendship with any one who was — this !" He looked away. The. girl laughed. Dick looked back quickly. "Oh, I'm sorry, Mr. Sommers ! But, you see," Frances explained, "living so near Pittsburgh, it had to surprise me to think of any man considering the possible need of qualifying himself for — anything. And, of course, it made it only funnier when you — the first one who ever thought of such a thing here — have already done so much more than any of them !" "I, Miss Durant?" "Haven't you?" she challenged him directly. "Why, leaving out everything you've done in the service, which you persist in considering of no account, your gun alone — if it succeeds — is more than any of the rest have. Or are you afraid that the gun won't succeed ?" she added quickly. "Oh, not that, Miss Durant. Of course, I must still have the inventor's sublime confidence that the gun is good. Your father himself saw it at threethirty, and I myself know that it came out on time, at least ; and the temperature records showed all right for the whole time. In fact, I am beginning to be afraid now — after the excitement is all over — that I have been doing Mr. Pinckney an injustice. But, even if the gun were tested, accepted, and sure of success, I told you at Manila it can give me nothing." "Nothing?" "Nothing to give me any right compared— well, with Mr. Pinckney, let us say. He is the only one I know ; so I cannot include the others." "He is the one who certainly considers himself to have the best right here," Frances returned. "And I thought you could see" — her eyes lighted recklessly as his met them — "that I was thinking, perhaps, particularly of him." "When he has already made, under your father, a dozen successes, and has his future and fortune assured — when he turns everything he touches into money ; whereas I " The girl's laugh checked him again. "Oh, I appreciate that he is a most promising Midas!" Frances rejoined. "But, Midas, if I remember, became terribly monotonous, to say the least, not only to his friends, but — finally— to himself, even. And, living so near Pittsburgh, as I mentioned a moment ago, even I have found out already that when a man makes everything he touches into money, before long he'll touch anything — to make money out of it. Oh, I want to be fair, too ; but that's Etherington and most of my other friends about here, also ; whereas you — you gave your spare time for years to your gun, knowing, before you began, that you'd never make a cent from it." "I had no choice, as I told you !" Dick seemed almost to rebuke her. "So please don't transmute my necessity into any virtue." "I won't, if you yourself won't belittle your achievement." "My achievement?" "Yes ; your gun — which is just as great and valuable to the government and to the country, and even more creditable to you than if it had brought you a fortune, as it would to Mr. Pinckney or to any one else. Yet you think, because I am rich from the profits on such guns, that I can't value a man or a gun except as they make money ! But, believe me, Lieutenant Sommers, I had often thought, even before I met you, that I should like to consider my money as giving me the privilege to choose my friends for what they do ; instead of letting it force me to select them because of how much money they can make. But what — what have I said?" She caught herself up suddenly. In the quick flush of her confusion she lowered her head ; but Dick had lifted his. "You know that I must go back to Bagol to-night — almost at once now, Miss Durant," he said. "I cannot say —no one can say — how long I must stay there. For I cannot desert again ; I must finish my work there, this time, before I can leave. But, believe me, I shall finish it very soon ! And, when I have, may I come back to see you — then?" "If you can finish it very soon, Mr. Sommers" — Frances raised her eyes and met his frankly — "perhaps you won't have to come all the way back here to see me." "You mean " "That father and Etherington take the Irvcssa back to Manila again within a month, and " "And you are to go with them?" "I had agreed with father to go before I knew that you would be back in the Philippines. I shall not change my mind simply because I know that you will be there." "Miss Durant !" Dick exclaimed. But Mr. Durant appeared at that moment between the portieres. "I am very sorry, Lieutenant Sommers," he said, "but I promised you to put you upon the midnight train. It is, indeed, too