CHAPTER III.

WHITNEY BARNES UNDER FIRE.

Joshua Barnes, sometimes referred to in the daily press as Old Grim

Barnes, the mustard millionaire, turned suddenly upon his son and

pinioned him:

"Why don't you get married?"

"That's just it, pater--why don't I?" replied the young man, blandly.

"Well, why don't you, then?" stormed Joshua Barnes, banging his fist

down upon the mahogany table. "It's time you did."

Another bang lifted the red-headed office boy in the next room clear

out of Deep Blood Gulch just as Derringer Dick was rescuing the

beautiful damsel from the Apaches. Even Miss Featherington dropped

"The Mystery of the Purple Room" on the floor and made a wild

onslaught on the keys of her typewriter.

Whitney Barnes smiled benevolently upon his parent and nonchalantly

lighted a cigarette.

"As I've said before," he parried easily between the puffing of smoke

rings, "I haven't found the girl."

"Dod rot the girl," started Joshua Barnes, then stopped.

"Now, you know, my dear father, that I couldn't treat my wife like

that. The trouble with you, pater, is that you reason from false

premises."

"Nothing of the sort," choked out Barnes senior. "You know well enough

what I mean, young man. You have any number of--of--well, eligible

young ladies, to choose from. You go everywhere and meet everybody.

And you spend my money like water."

"Somebody has got to spend it," spoke up the sole heir to the mustard

millions, cheerfully. "I'll tell you what I'll do, pater--you stop

making it and I'll stop spending it. That's a bargain. It'll be a

great lark for us both. It keeps me awake nights figuring out how I'm

going to spend it and it keeps you awake nights puzzling over how you

can make it--or, that is, make more of it."

"_Stop_!" thundered Joshua Barnes. "For once in my life, Whitney

Barnes, I am going to have a serious talk with you. If your poor

mother had only lived all this wouldn't have been necessary. She'd

have had you married off and there'd be a houseful of grand-children

by this time, and"----

"Just a moment, pater--did triplets or that sort of thing ever run in

our family?"

"Certainly not! What are you driving at?"

"Nothing; nothing, my father. Only I was just wondering. We have a

pretty big house, you know."

For a moment Joshua Barnes seemed on the verge of apoplexy, but he

came around quickly, and moreover with a twinkle in his eye. Even a

life devoted to mustard has its brighter side and Old Grim Barnes was

not entirely devoid of a sense of humor. He was his grim old self

again, however, when he resumed:

"Again I insist that you be serious. I intend that you shall be

married within a year. Otherwise I will put you to work on a salary of

ten dollars a week and compel you to live on it. If you persist in

refusing to interest yourself in my business, the business that my

grandfather founded and that my father and I built up, you can at

least settle down and lead a respectable married life.

"To be candid with you, Whitney," and Joshua Barnes's big voice

suddenly softened, "I want to see some little grand-children round me

before I die. I have some pride of blood, my boy, and I want to see

our name perpetuated. You have frivolled enough, Whitney. You are

twenty-four. I can honestly thank God that you've been nothing more

than a fool. You are not vicious."

"Thanks, awfully, pater. Being nothing more than a fool I suppose it

is up to me to get married. Very well, then, I will. Give me your

hand, dad; it's a bargain."

Whitney Barnes tossed away his cigarette and grasped his father's hand

in both of his. He had become intensely serious. There was a depth of

affection in that handclasp that neither father nor son permitted to

show above the surface. Yet both felt it keenly within. Picking up his

hat and stick, the tall, slim, graceful young man said:

"You have no further commands on the subject, dad? Do you want to pick

the girl, or will you leave it to the taste and sometimes good

judgment of a fool?"

"Haven't you any one in mind, son?" asked Joshua Barnes, anxiously.

"Absolutely not one, pater. You see, the trouble is that I can't ever

seem to get real chummy with a girl but what her mother has to come

and camp on my trail and scare me into fits. You haven't the least

idea what a catch your son is, Joshua Barnes. Why, a mother-in-law

looks to me like something in petticoats that comes creeping up with a

catlike tread, carrying in one hand a net and in the other a

bale-hook. I can't sit out two dances with a debutante before this

nightmare is looking over my shoulder, grinning like a gargoyle and

counting up the number of millions you are going to leave me."

"Oh, bosh!" ejaculated Joshua Barnes. "It's all in your fool

imagination. Grow up and be a man, Whitney. You have given me your

word and I expect you to make good. And by the way, son, there is my

old friend Charley Calker's girl, just out of college. I hear she's a

stunner."

"Mary Calker is a stunner, dad, and then a trifle. But I regret to say

that she is too fresh from the cloistered halls of learning. You see I

have been out of college three years and have managed to forget such a

jolly lot that I really couldn't talk to her. She'd want me to make

love in Latin and correspond in Greek. Worse than that, she

understands Browning. No, poor Mary will have to marry a prescription

clerk, or a florist or something else out of the classics. But, don't

lose heart, pater, I may be engaged before night. By-by."

It was a vastly more solemn Whitney Barnes who strolled out of the

office of the mustard magnate and dragged his feet through the

anteroom where sat Marietta Featherington and Teddie O'Toole. The

comely Miss Featherington could scarcely believe what she saw from

under her jutting puffs.

This good looking, dandified young man, with his perpetual smile and

sparkling gray eyes had long been her conception of all that was noble

and cultured and aristocratic. He was her Viscount Reginald Vere de

Vere, speaking to her as from between yellow paper covers. He was her

prince incognito who fell in love with Lily, the Lovely Laundress. He

had threaded the mazes of more than one of her palpitating dreams, and

in her innermost heart of hearts she had cherished the fond belief

that one day their orbs would meet and their souls would rush together

in such a head-on collision as is sometimes referred to as love at

first sight. But in Miss Featherington's hero worship gloom had no

part. Her ideals never ceased to smile, whether they slew or caressed,

and perpetually they carried themselves with a jaunty swing or a

dashing stride.

The fact that there had been storm mutterings within the awful cave of

Old Grim Barnes had never before had a depressing effect upon her

hero. He had always sallied forth with airy tread, humming a tune or

laughing with his eyes. What could have happened at this fateful

meeting? Perhaps he had been disinherited. Rapture of raptures, he had

confessed his love for some howling beauty of humble station, had been

cut off with the inevitable shilling and was now going forth to earn

his bread.

Marietta Featherington's heart came up and throbbed in her throat as

Whitney Barnes suddenly wheeled and confronted her. Leaning back upon

his cane, he looked at her--very, very solemnly.

"Miss Featherington," he pronounced slowly, "I wish to ask you a

question. May I?"

Marietta was sure that her puffs were on fire, so fierce was the heat

that blazed under her fair skin. She concentrated all her mental

forces in an effort to summon an elegant reply. But all she could get

out was a stifled:

"Sure thing."

"Thank you, Miss Featherington," said the young man. "My question is

this: Do you believe in soul mates? That is, do you, judging from what

you have observed and any experience you may have had, believe that

true love is controlled by the hand of Fate or that you yourself can

take hold and guide your own footsteps in affairs of the heart?"

Teddie O'Toole had crammed "Deep Blood Gulch" into his hip pocket and

was grinning from ear to ear.

Miss Featherington was positive that her puffs were all ablaze. She

could almost smell them burning. She looked down and she looked up and

she drew a long, desperate sigh.

"I believe in Fate!" she said with emotion that would have done honor

to Sarah Bernhardt.

"Thank you, Miss Featherington," said Whitney Barnes, with profound

respect, then turned on his heel and went out into the corridor of the

great office building.

Unconsciously he had dealt a ruthless blow and there is not a

scintilla of doubt but that he was responsible for the box on the ears

that made Teddie O'Toole's head ring for the remainder of the day and

thereby took all the flavor from the thrills he had found in "Deep

Blood Gulch."