Argosy All-Story Weekly, April 18, 1925 — page 13: what you’re looking at

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

DINNER FOR CYNTHIA. Stone had inherited from her father, Colonel Hawksford Halling, sometime of the Union Army—“ Hell-Hound ” Halling they called him in those lamentable old Civil War days. If you would understand Mrs. Stone her- self more perfectly, look up what little of him has been written into history. With Mrs. Ronalds’s stifled gulp and Mrs. Stone’s hard little grunt, the starmg session came to an end. “And he lied about where he was last night, too,” the latter lady added, more or Jess pleasantly. — Cornelia winced, as before a whip-lash. ‘“ No! No, mother—he didn’t really lie!” she protested. ‘ Neville doesn’t lie, dear. He’s the very soul of honor. He—”’ “Tah!” remarked Mrs. Stone under her breath, and glanced at the ceiling—a very pretty ceiling now, by the way, since the huge old Ronalds town house had been completely done over, and the slightly fe- verish frescoes and the plaster Cupids with the crumbling noses were all gone. Tears suffused Cornelia’s pale eyes; hands clasped more tightly. “But he is, mother!” she insisted, very earnestly indeed. ‘He didn’t lie; there was just some misunderstanding. Towner took the message, you know, and-—oh, dear!” She reached for the button beside the couch. “JT want to ask him again,” she ex- claimed. Mrs. Stone chuckled. This was a strange sound, a pregnant and expressive sound, peculiarly her own—neither an ordinary chuckle nor a derisive cackle nor yet a sneering throat-rattle, although it had cer- tain elements of all three. When she made it, the right corner of her mouth came up momentarily in a weird, piratical twist. “ Well, I'll say for Towner that he knows better than to lie for the brat!” she ob- served rumblingly. Into this rather elegant nook of a room, then, within the minute, came Towner, butler to the Ronalds household. Oh, no, he was by no means the regula- tion old family retainer, with dignity and little sideboards and a near-English accent. Towner was merely a_ well-upholstered, her 163 highly efficient person who had been with them now some six or seven years, a tol- erant soul and kindly to the very last de- gree. Amiability radiated from his round countenance, radiated even through the fog- gy lenses of the little steel-rimmed nose- glasses, which latterly he had been forced to wear all the time. The sole ouistanding feature about Towner lay in the fact that he was the only man living who had ever served Mrs. Stone for more than three months. He bowed perfunctorily to Mrs. Ronalds, nominal head of the house, although one wary ear was cocked in Mrs. Stone’s di- rection. ‘*Er—Towner,” said Cornelia. ‘‘ About Mr. Neville, when he telephoned yesterday. Just exactly what did he say, Towner?” “Why, he said, ma’am,”’ Towner re- sponded, with really commendable patience, since this was the fourth time they had been over the episode, “ that he’d be stay- ing with Mr. Peter Weems overnight.” “ And he said that Peter was with him then, did he not, and that he was about to go home with Peter?” ‘So I took it, ma’am.” “So you took it! That’s just what I mean, Towner!” Mrs. Ronalds cried petu- lantly. “‘ Did he say that or didn’t he?” “He said that, ma’am.” “Tn just so many words?” “In just so many words!” Mrs. Stone snorted. “Then why did Peter Weems ‘all up at ten o’clock last night and ask for Mr. Nev- ille, and say that he hadn’t seen him for a week?” Towner adjusted his glasses. “ That’s a great puzzle to me, ma’am, ” he said guardedly. ““ Was young Weems drunk as usual when he telephoned?” Towner started and brightened instantly. “ 'Why—why, bless me, Mrs. Stone, I hadn’t thought of that! Now that you mention it, I believe he was. He—he sound- ed that way and—” “Tah!” Mrs. Stone broke in disgustedly. “So he wasn’t drunk, eh? And Neville was—” “No, mother!” Cornelia cried. “I’m — CONNIE JOOKS (E@)