2

lot of money, but-as Mrs. Armstrong had once remarked to a maid discovered in dishonesty-money isn't everything. For instance, there is Literature and Art.

That Literature and Art can be made to pay, was demonstrated by Armstrong's Magazine. Armstrong's was the unquestioned leader of the "Quartette"-the sensational Tenor of the organization, so to speak. Each month, when it appeared upon the news-stands, it came right down to the front with the confidence of a Caruso, took High C, and held it while the other magazines lined up humbly behind and hummed a low accompaniment.

And well they might! Armstrong's was the GREATEST MAGAZINE IN THE WORLD. The fact was printed with conspicuous frankness on the cover of each issue, and if more proof was required one had but to glance at the summary of contents also on the cover.

Consider, for example, a certain December number, a copy of which was carried to the Armstrong residence early in November in one of the immaculate doeskin gloves of Mr. Braithwaite Ball, of the Editorial Staff.

Mr. Ball might have left the magazine with the butler to be given to Mrs. Armstrong, but he admired her intensely and had spent two years in attaining a slightly personal relation to her. Also, it was about tea-time. So he sent up his card.

Mrs. Armstrong caused him to be shown up to her sitting-room. He entered, looking like the best man at a fashionable afternoon wedding, and bowed low over the hand which she extended. As he did so, it occurred to her that he was an agreeable and attractive-looking young man. His light hair grew well, and always looked as if it had just been cut. His scarfs, shirts, handkerchiefs, and hose invariably attained a happy harmony of color. Nor was the elegance of his appearance mitigated in the least by the round, tortoise-rimmed glasses which he wore, attached to a broad black ribbon. The glasses were becoming to Mr. Braithwaite Ball. They added a look of owlish erudition which in an editor seemed most desirable.

With a graceful gesture he held up the magazine for her inspection.

"Ah!" she said, regarding the cover. "You'd know her for a Studley Girl as far as you could see her, wouldn't you?"

Mr. Ball beamed at the picture, then at her. "Yes," he said. "And of course a Studley Girl on a magazine cover means just one thing-Armstrong's." She nodded. "Let's see: ley--?"

we pay Stud

"Fifty thousand a year for five years to work exclusively for us." He mentioned the figures with exactly the proper blending of magnificence and nonchalance.

Mrs. Armstrong held out her hand for the magazine. He bowed slightly as he presented it. His air of deference pleased her. "Would you like tea?" she invited.

"I should be charmed."

"Please ring-three times. The button is there by the door."

Mr. Ball rang. Then he took a chair at her side, and together they admired the magazine.

Pictorially there was little to conceal the proud bosom of the Studley Girl, but the requirements of publicity had in this instance also served the needs of modesty. She was cut off at the bust by a wall of type:

TWENTY GIGANTIC
FEATURES THIS MONTH!

Beginning in this number
CYPRIAN LETCHWOOD'S

greatest serial

"LORETTE”

A Smashing Story of Illicit Love!

"Oh!" exclaimed Mrs. Armstrong. "So our new Letchwood novel begins in this number! 'Lorette'-I like that title. Letchwood always does get wonderful titles, doesn't he, Mr. Ball?"

"Ripping! But then he would. Of course he's the greatest artist, in a literary sense, we have to-day. Do you know what he makes, Mrs. Armstrong?"

"I suppose he does very well?"

"Rah-ther! You can judge for yourself. This is the third novel he has done in fourteen months. We pay him thirty thousand for the serial rights, and his publishers give him thirty thousand more as advance royalty on the book. Oh, he must make over a hundred and fifty thousand a year at the very least."

"Well," she said, "he deserves it!"

"Of course he does," Mr. Ball agreed, as a maid appeared, wheeling a little wagon on which reposed a heavy silver tea-service.

"And you see we have him. The other magazines can't afford him."

Mrs. Armstrong put the periodical on

"Have you read 'Lorette' in proof?" she asked.

He smiled. "I've read the first three instalments. That's all there is, as a matter of fact, so far. He's just two jumps ahead. of the presses. But of course Shrimpton knows the story. And with Letchwood one can't go wrong.

From what I've read I should say it was his best-quite. He's getting more and more the Gallic touchalways coupled, of course, with Anglo-Saxon restraint. And occasionally, if he does run over the edge a bit, Shrimpton knows just where to stop him. An ordinary man couldn't handle him, but you see Shrimpton is certainly the greatest editor-outside Mr. Armstrong, of course the country has ever seen. Your husband is not paying Shrimpton sixty thousand a year for nothing!"

"Of course not. But will Letchwood actually let him change his stories?"

"Ab-so-lutely!" said Mr. Ball. "A case in point-do you remember the big love scene in 'Molecules'? We ran it last June."

Mrs. Armstrong reflected. "You mean the scene where Van Kleek finds Caro asleep beside the lake?"

"Yes. Well, in his original writing of that, Letchwood really overdid it a bit, but Shrimpton got at him, and

"Overdid it? How do you mean?"

A slight pinkness mounted from the cheeks to the temples of Mr. Braithwaite Ball. He looked down at his tea and stirred it for a moment. Then, meeting her eyes with a quizzical smile, he replied:

"Frankly, Mrs. Armstrong, Letchwood wanted her to be lying there on the bank quite quite unclothed."

"Well, but she was!" put in the lady.

"Oh, yes, of course," said Mr. Ball. "Unclothed. But don't you remember the leaves? She was partly covered by them, so that only the arm under her head, and one-ah-limb, showed. Shrimpton felt

that without the leaves the situation might jar some of our subscribers." She nodded over her tea-cup. girls, possibly," she assented.

"School

"Oh, no!" said Ball. "The schoolgirls don't object to anything at all nowadays. They're among the broadest-minded readers that we have. It's their parents and grandparents who complain when we areah-frank. . . . Shrimpton had to put his foot down that time. Letchwood was a little bit annoyed at first. He thought we were quarreling with the naturalistic quality of the story; that is, that we didn't believe a girl like Caro would go swimming in that way, and then come out and sleep on the bank without pausing to dress herself. But when he saw that that wasn't it-that were only concerned about les convenances he took it all right. He just switched the scene to autumn and let the leaves fall on her while she was asleep. It didn't take ten minutes to do it, and it helped us out, without injuring in the least. the artistic value of the story-for of course she was undressed just the same, leaves or no leaves."

we

"It must be fascinating to edit a magazine!" said Mrs. Armstrong, setting down her cup. "Especially when you are really educating people-teaching them not to be prudes, but to look squarely at life."

"Yes," answered Ball. "But they aren't quite ready to look at life that way yet. They still want-ah-leaves, so to speak."

"But don't you think that it is all in the way such things are handled? . . . Another cup?"

"No, thank you. . . . Yes, of course that's it. That's where Letchwood is supreme. Just take that situation as Balzac, or Hugo, or De Maupassant would have handled it. They'd have made it gross. But Letchwood gets the French charm into it without the the What I mean is that one knew that girl Caro to be pure and sweet. Somehow she wasn't conscious of her her lack of clothing. She was above such thoughts. And when he made love to her, there, in the woods, and under those circumstances, he was so careful not to touch her-there was something very idyllic about it all."

Mrs. Armstrong agreed enthusiastically. "That's exactly it!" she said. "I've been thinking about that kind of thing a good deal-in connection with the magazines, of course and I've come to the conclusion

that the reason Letchwood can make his characters do these things is that he draws them in such a way that you don't feel them to be real flesh and blood. Take Caro: she was so slim and chaste, with her white skin and golden hair, that you-well, you know what I mean. And Van Kleek too. He was such a gentleman at all times that when he found her there you felt perfectly certain that he would-that he would do the right thing."

"Precisely."

She took up the magazine again. Ball glanced around the room.

"But what does this mean?" asked Mrs. Armstrong, pointing to a line on the cover. "A smashing story of illicit love?"

"Just that," said Ball. Again he colored slightly. "Lorette is a married woman. She has the same purity as Caro, in a way, but-well, naturally, as Letchwood grows older his themes become more mature. Lorette really does almost-almost

"I see," said Mrs. Armstrong quickly. "-But not quite, of course," put in Ball hurriedly. "So far, none of Letchwood's heroines have quite. But mark my words, Mrs. Armstrong, sooner or later one of them will. I'm certain of it. It's his trend."

"And when she does," said the lady confidently, "she will do it as all those wonder

ful women of his do everything: in a way that will be entirely free from-from

What I mean is that it won't seem real at all."

The maid entered and wheeled out the little tea-wagon.

Mr. Ball arose. "This has been delightful!" he exclaimed. "You'll pardon my speaking of it, but this roomit is such a perfect setting for you. Louis Quinze, with just a touch of

the Italian Renaissance here and there to relieve it. And old rose. You are quite Madame la Marquise."

"I'm so glad you like it," she said genuinely.

"And your bibelots," he said. "Not too few-not too many. It is all perfect. And if I may say so, it is all-you.'

He spoke with a deference, a sort of Old World formality, which made his compliments seem just impersonal enough.

"You have a feeling for such things,' she said. "I know it. I wonder, Mr. Ball, if you would be interested in thinking of a color-scheme for my new limousine?"

"Oh, I should be delighted! And I know just the thing. Let me see " He stepped back, and with his head to one side and his eyes half-closed regarded her for a moment, as if he had been a portrait-painter. "It should be a setting for you, just as this room is. There's a shade of dark brown-very, very dark-dark as your hair-which could be made to go with a deep blue, exactly repeating the note of your eyes. And inside there would be brocade upholstery, repeating again the blue and brown, in a fine pattern. That would make the whole harmonious, you see."

"Oh, it sounds charming!" she cried, in frank delight.

"I'll have the colors mixed," said Mr. Ball, "so that you may see precisely what I have in mind." He emphasized the precision of the thing he had in mind with a nice gesture of the hand. "I'll run in and show you samples in a day or two."

"You're very kind,' she acquiesced. "You must come often and have tea with me. So few men seem to care for it."

"I adore tea!" said Mr. Ball. "And with you-ah, thank you so much! You use a mixture of Ceylon and Pekoe. Delicious. But I must be scampering along."

She gave him her hand. Again he bowed. over it.

"Au revoir, madame!"

She noticed that he managed, without the least awkwardness, to back all the way to the door. Then with a charming smile

he was gone.

Mrs. Armstrong took up the magazine, adjusted herself on the cushions of her sofa, so that the soft light of the reading-lamp fell across her shoulder, and turned to the first page of "Lorette":

Young Bobbie Desbarets turned over. He had heard Meadows raising the shades and drawing back the heavy inner windowcurtains, but had not opened his eyes. They dreaded the sharp morning light, not because of its brilliance, but because it heralded another day. But day had come again. There was no helping it. The thought added to the sense of powerlessness, which was new to him, and which filled him like a great ache. He was powerless against the day, and against other days to come, as against the cruel Fate which had decreed that Lorette Coventry was the wife of another man.

"Your bath is ready, sir." Meadows, his impeccable man servant, was standing attentively beside the massive four-post bed. Three generations of men servants had stood beside that bed and awakened three generations of Desbarets with those selfsame words: "Your bath is ready, sir."

Bobbie thrust his two feet out. - "My slippers!" he commanded.

Deftly, the perfectly trained servant slipped them on.

Bobbie opened his eyes. "Well, here goes!"

As though struck by a hurricane, the bedclothes went flying to the floor, and with a spring the blond young giant, in lavender silk pajamas, leaped to his feet.

As he moved across the huge chamber, toward the bathroom door, his fingers worked eagerly at the buttons of his pajama coat. The cold water! Ah, how he loved the feel of it! A moment later a sound of splashing told the valet that his young master was in the massive porcelain tub.

A typical Letchwood opening! The man servant-the great bedroom-the massive bed and bath-tub-the three generations-the cold bath! How perfectly Letchwood "keyed" his story in his opening paragraphs. One sensed immediately the elegance and cleanliness of all that was to follow. And Lorette: she was married and he was unhappy about her.

Mrs. Armstrong laid the magazine down, open, in her lap, clasped her hands behind her head, and gazed into space. She had suddenly become conscious of a very vivid mental picture of young Bobbie Desbarets.

. . He looked like Mr. Ball! True, Mr. Ball was not a giant, but he was blond, and something told her that he did wear laven

der silk pajamas. A flush came to her cheeks; a smile to her lips.

"He's a darling!" she whispered to herself. "A perfect darling!"

Her husband came home presently, and found her sitting there. He brushed her cheek with his mustache. "Oh," he said, seeing the magazine in her lap. "You have the December number?"

"Yes; I'm just beginning Letchwood's new story."

"Like it?"

"It starts well."

"Plenty of pep?" he inquired.

"I wish you wouldn't say pep!" she declared irritably. "It sounds vulgar."

"All right," he said good-naturedly as he moved toward the door. "Maybe it is." Without replying she took up the magazine and resumed her reading.

With his hand on the knob, Armstrong turned.

"Are we going out to-night?" he asked. She nodded, without looking up. "To the opera."

Armstrong's sigh was something between an Oh and an Uh. He opened the door and passed from the room.

"Jim!"

After Bobbie Desbarets had bathed, he was put into his riding-clothes by Meadows. Then a furious half-hour on a mettled horse. And then, of course, another bath-an icecold shower, which, though it caused his skin to tingle, did not relieve the awful heaviness which lay upon his heart. He breakfasted in his sitting-room, wearing a dressing-gown of lavender brocade. could not bear to go down-stairs and face the inquiring gaze of his dear old Mater.

He