Argosy All-Story Weekly — page 76: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

By EDGAR FRANKLIN Author of ‘‘ Regular People,’’ ‘‘A Noise in Newboro,”’ ete. WHAT HAS OCCURRED IN PART 1 “YNTHIA and her cousin, Nora Blair, who share an apartment, are nearly out of funds and are too proud to ask aid of their wealthy uncle, who disapproves of their choice of artistic careers. Cynthia’s fiancé cancels a dinner engagement with her on the very evening that a hearty dinner would have been most welcome fo her. * Meanwhile, the mother of the wealthy Neville Ronalds believes that a Miss Blair has designs on her son’s millions, through marriage. Cynthia gets the letter meant for her cousin and decides to call at the Ronalds home on a pretext, simply to get invited to dinner. Mrs. Ronalds and her mother are greatly impressed with Cynthia's refinement. The young lady makes such a hit with the eccen- tric grandmother that the latter absolutely refuses to let Cynthia depart from the Ronalds mansion. Cynthia begins to think the old lady is deranged. CHAPTER VII. THE GUEST. “ a ND if you knew me better,” concluded rad Mrs. Stone, ‘‘ you’d know that that’s exactly what you’re going to do!” Her hard smile challenged Cynthia—and it may be said that Cynthia, although she devoted a vain three or four seconds to summoning a hard and defiant, even a con- temptuous smile of her own, turned dis- tinctly chilly. ‘Cynthia, you see, felt that full under- standing of Mrs. Stone had been given her at last; the lady, not to put too fine a point on the thing, was demented! Per- haps, for the matter of that, her daughter was also demented; she hadn’t looked any too bright during their brief conversation. Possibly they’d both been crazy for years— possibly the hinted eccentricities of Neville himself were the sickening fruit of this un- wholesome ancestry. Although this strange, elderly person didn’t look crazy, did she? Her eye was clear and cold and distinctly intelligent. This story began in the Argosy-Allstory Weekly for April 18. 386 O eonnichboolks co