Adventure stories; American fiction -- 20th century
And far uptown another sat with the same paper in her hand. Barbara
Harding was glancing through the sporting sheet in search of the scores
of yesterday's woman's golf tournament. And as she searched her eyes
suddenly became riveted upon the picture of a giant man, and she forgot
about tournaments and low scores. Hastily she searched the heads and
text until she came upon the name--“'Sailor' Byrne!”
Yes! It must be he. Greedily she read and re-read all that had been
written about him. Yes, she, Barbara Harding, scion of an aristocratic
house--ultra-society girl, read and re-read the accounts of a brutal
prize fight.
A half hour later a messenger boy found “Sailor” Byrne the center of
an admiring throng in Professor Cassidy's third-floor gymnasium. With
worshiping eyes taking in his new hero from head to foot the youth
handed Byrne a note.
He stood staring at the heavy weight until he had perused it.
“Any answer?” he asked.
“No answer, kid,” replied Byrne, “that I can't take myself,” and he
tossed a dollar to the worshiping boy.
An hour later Billy Byrne was ascending the broad, white steps that led
to the entrance of Anthony Harding's New York house. The servant who
answered his ring eyed him suspiciously, for Billy Byrne still dressed
like a teamster on holiday. He had no card!
“Tell Miss Harding that Mr. Byrne has come,” he said.
The servant left him standing in the hallway, and started to ascend the
great staircase, but halfway up he met Miss Harding coming down.
“Never mind, Smith,” she said. “I am expecting Mr. Byrne,” and then
seeing that the fellow had not seated her visitor she added, “He is a
very dear friend.” Smith faded quickly from the scene.
“Billy!” cried the girl, rushing toward him with out-stretched hands.
“O Billy, we thought you were dead. How long have you been here? Why
haven't you been to see me?”
Byrne hesitated.
A great, mad hope had been surging through his being since he had read
of the broken engagement and received the girl's note. And now in her
eyes, in her whole attitude, he could read, as unmistakably as though
her lips had formed the words that he had not hoped in vain.
But some strange influence had seemed suddenly to come to work upon
him. Even in the brief moment of his entrance into the magnificence of
Anthony Harding's home he had felt a strange little stricture of the
throat--a choking, half-suffocating sensation.
The attitude of the servant, the splendor of the furnishings, the
stateliness of the great hall, and the apartments opening upon it--all
had whispered to him that he did not “belong.”
And now Barbara, clothed in some wondrous foreign creation, belied by
her very appearance the expression that suffused her eyes.
No, Billy Byrne, the mucker, did not belong there. Nor ever could he
belong, more than Barbara ever could have “belonged” on Grand Avenue.
And Billy Byrne knew it now. His heart went cold. The bottom seemed
suddenly to have dropped out of his life.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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