The Blind Goddess. Arthur Cheney Train

in.”

      Mr. Shay patted her hand as she led him to a chair.

      “How are you, Eileen? You’ve put on no more weight, I’m thinkin’! First of the month——”

      He took out a red Russia leather wallet and handed her a check drawn to her order for a thousand dollars, signed with his own name as treasurer of the Associated Architects and Builders Corporation.

      “You oughtn’t to moon around like this, Eileen. It ain’t good for you. Why don’t you try to amuse yourself? It’s bad to think too much. Let me take you to a play or a movie some night—Why not to-night? We can get there in time for the ‘feature.’”

      “Not to-night, Dan. I’m not up to it. I’ve been through rough weather to-day.”

      “Sometime soon, then! I don’t like to see you so down.”

      “I’m afraid I’ll never be up, Danny! How’s Dick?”

      “Fine and dandy.”

      “And—Moira?” She strove to keep her voice calm.

      “She’s got a sweetheart, I’m thinkin’—or will have!”

      Eileen leaned forward eagerly.

      “Who is he?”

      “Oh, I know nothing about it. She brought a young fellow home to dinner with her to-night—a kind of Donnybrook lad.”

      “What did he look like?”

      Mr. Shay rubbed the white pin feathers of his chin.

      “Whoever says women aren’t all alike now!—Not too tall and very black—as black as comes out of Donegal. You should see the hair and eyes of him!”

      “I saw a young man like that this very—” She bit her lip. “And she’s well?” she hurried on.

      “Prettier than ever—a real ‘Irish rose.’”

      Silence came between them as their minds flew back over the years. A blue sputter came from the car tracks—a clang.

      “Dan!” said Mrs. Clayton. “I can’t stand this much longer. It’s killing me. I might better be dead. It seemed to be for the best once, but—but—Oh, Dan!”

      She let her head drop on his shoulder.

      “I know, my dear! I know!” he nodded, stroking the grey hair. “One can’t talk about such things. It’s hard. But it is for the best, Eileen.”

      “It can’t be right!” she cried desperately. “Moira’s old enough to look after herself. I couldn’t do her any harm. Do you think I’d do her any harm, Danny?” she implored him.

      Mr. Shay arose.

      “Don’t ask me that, Eileen! It’s too late to discuss that question. You know how sorry I am for you. But after all, you gave her up.”

      “But I didn’t need her then!” she protested. “And I had no time to look after her. How could I carry a baby about with me on tour? She’d have died of pneumonia. I didn’t mean to part with her forever! I miss her more and more every day. I can’t live without her any longer. I can’t! I can’t!”

      The old man laid his hand on her shoulder, the bones of which were barely covered by the flesh.

      “Do you think that she’d be better off if she knew who she was? Do you think she’d be happier to know you were her mother?”

      Mrs. Clayton put her hands to her temples.

      “Is she the only one? Ain’t I to be considered at all? Don’t you think it a crime against nature for a mother to be deprived of her own flesh and blood when—when she’s old and sick and hasn’t anybody else? Oh, Danny——”

      He held out his arms to her, and she buried her face in them, sobbing.

      “Poor Eileen!” he said huskily. “Poor girl! It breaks my heart. But it’s no use. He won’t let you.”

      It was at approximately the same hour at which Eileen Clayton bade good-night to Daniel Shay that Hugh Dillon, having been deposited by the Devens’ motor, began climbing the precipitous staircase leading to the dwelling-place of Mr. Ignatius Loyola O’Hara. A delicious odor of frying onions floated from above, which grew stronger and stronger as he ascended until he reached the top landing and threw open the door of the rear tenement, disclosing the palsied form of Jeffrey Quirk. The “ambulance chaser” crouched before a small stove, holding a sizzling frying-pan in one hand while apparently endeavouring to read a book in the other; O’Hara, stretched in his shirt sleeves on a broken-down horsehair couch and smoking a short black pipe, watched him through half-closed lids.

      “Well,” announced O’Hara, “I got forty-five hundred out of the gas company. They were scared pink! Friend Renig is a rich man, now. And I only charged him fifteen hundred!”

      “Supper’s ready!” interrupted Quirk, dumping the sizzling contents of the frying-pan into a dish in the middle of the table. “Come and get it.”

      The lawyer swung his feet to the floor and pulled up a chair.

      “Aren’t you going to eat anything?” he asked Hugh.

      “I’ve had my dinner.”

      “You have, eh? Where?”

      Hugh, who had taken O’Hara’s place on the sofa, lit a cigarette with ostentatious indifference.

      “With some friends of mine named Devens up on Fifth Avenue.”

      “Devens! Fifth Avenue! You can’t mean ‘The Old Man’?”

      “I wasn’t aware that he enjoyed that title. I’m referring to Mr. Richard Devens.”

      O’Hara laid down his knife and fork.

      “You’re kidding me!”

      “Not at all. I’ve just left there. He sent me home in his car. I’m going to dine there again next week.”

      “If you’re telling the truth, will you kindly explain how you got to know him?”

      “Through his daughter.”

      “And how did you get to know her?”

      Hugh blew a few desultory smoke rings.

      “I met her—socially—in a way. She’s a friend of mine.”

      O’Hara eyed him suspiciously from beneath his shaggy brows.

      “I’ll wager she picked you up!”

      “Well, what if she did? She was willing to make an honest man of me by taking me home to dinner.”

      O’Hara reached over and pinched Hugh’s leg just above the knee.

      “Do you mean to tell me you didn’t know that Richard Devens is one of the richest men in New York? That he is the organizer and president of the Associated Architects and Builders, with a capital of fifteen million dollars, and that he has nearly as much political influence as Murphy himself?”

      “No,” answered Hugh. “I hadn’t an idea of it.”

      “Well, that is the fact. They’re the people who build all the State capitols, and viaducts, and giant hotels, and railway terminals—they plant ’em overnight—work while you sleep. My boy, you’re in clover! Richard Devens could make you governor if he’d a mind to.”

      “I don’t want his money!” said Hugh. “And I don’t believe he could make anybody governor.” He glanced sharply at O’Hara. “Is the Associated Architects and Builders the corporation there was such a howl about last year—where the syndicate that marketed some of its bonds was supposed to have made such an unholy profit, and——”

      “And where the syndicate and the board of directors looked