The Rich Mrs Burgoyne | Page 7

and he was clever, or, at least,
everyone believed him to be so; and he had charm--a charm of sheer
sweetness, for he never seemed to be particularly anxious to please.
Barry was very gallant, in an impersonal sort of way: he took a keen,

elder-brotherly sort of interest in every pretty girl in the village, and
liked to discuss their own love affairs with them, with a seriousness
quite paternal. He never singled any girl out for particular attention, or
escorted one unless asked, but he was flatteringly attentive to all the
middle-aged people of his acquaintance and his big helpful hand was
always ready for stumbling old women on the church steps, or tearful
waifs in the street--he always had time to listen to other people's
troubles. Barry-- everyone admitted--had his points. But after all--
After all, he was lazy, and shiftless, and unambitious: he was content to
be assistant editor of the Mail; content to be bullied and belittled by old
Rogers; content to go on his own idle, sunny way, playing with his
small, chubby son, foraging the woods with a dozen small boys at his
heels, working patiently over a broken gopher-trap or a rusty shotgun,
for some small admirer. Worst of all, Barry had been intemperate, years
ago, and there were people who believed that his occasional visits to
San Francisco, now, were merely excuses for revels with his old
newspaper friends there.
And yet, he had been such a brilliant, such a fiery and ambitious boy!
All Santa Paloma had taken pride in the fact that Barry Valentine, only
twenty, had been offered the editorship of the one newspaper of Plumas,
a little town some twelve miles away, and had prophesied a triumphant
progress for him, to the newspapers of San Francisco, of Chicago, of
New York! But Barry had not been long in Plumas when he suddenly
married Miss Hetty Scott of that town, and in the twelve years that had
passed since then the golden dreams for his future had vanished one by
one, until to-day found him with no one to believe in him--not even
himself.
Hetty Scott was but seventeen when Barry met her, and already the
winner in two village contests for beauty and popularity. After their
marriage she and Barry went to San Francisco, and shrewd, little,
beautiful Hetty found herself more admired than ever, and began to talk
of the stage. After that, Santa Paloma heard only occasional rumors:
Barry had a position on a New York paper, and Hetty was studying in a
dramatic school; there was a baby; there were financial troubles, and

Barry was drinking again; then Hetty was dead, and Barry, fearing the
severe eastern winters for the delicate baby, was coming back to Santa
Paloma. So back they came, and there had been no indication since,
that the restless, ambitious Barry of years ago was not dead forever.
"No smoking?" said Barry now, good-naturedly. "That's so; you've got
some sort of 'High Jinks' on for to-night, haven't you? I brought up
those hinges for your mixing table, Jen," he went on, "but any time will
do. I suppose the kitchen is right on the fault, as it were."
"The kitchen DOES look earthquakey," admitted Mrs. Carew with a
laugh, "but the girls would be glad to have the extra table; so go right
ahead. I'll take you out in a second. I have been on the GO," she added
wearily, "since seven this morning: my feet are like balls of fire. You
don't know what the details are. Why, just tying up the prizes takes a
good HOUR!"
"Anything go wrong?" asked the man sympathetically.
"Oh, no; nothing particular. But you know how a house has to LOOK!
Even the bathrooms, and our room, and the spare room--the children do
get things so mussed. It all sounds so simple; but it takes such a time."
"Well, Annie--doesn't she do these things?"
"Oh, ordinarily she does! But she was sweeping all morning, we moved
things about so last night, and there was china, and glasses to get down,
and the porches--"
"But, Jeanette," said Barry Valentine patiently, "don't you keep this
house clean enough ordinarily without these orgies of cleaning the
minute anybody comes in? I never knew such a house for women to
open windows, and tie up curtains, and put towels over their hair, and
run around with buckets of cold suds. Why this extra fuss?"
"Well, it's not all cleaning," said Mrs. Carew, a little annoyed. "It's
largely supper; and I'm not giving anything LIKE the suppers Mrs.
White and Mrs. Adams give."

"Why don't they eat at home?" said Mr. Valentine hospitably. "What do
they come for anyway? To see the house or each other's clothes, or to
eat? Women are