Zelda Dameron

CHAPTER ITHE RETURN OF ZELDA DAMERON“She’s like Margaret; she’s really one of us,” remarked Mrs. Forrest to her brother. “She carries herself as Margaret did in her girlhood, and she’s dark, as we all are.”“I hope she’s escaped the Dameron traits; they’re unattractive,” said Rodney Merriam. “She’s taller than Margaret; but Margaret was bent at the last,—bent but not quite broken.”Mrs. Forrest and Zelda Dameron, her niece, who were just home from a five years’ absence abroad, had, so to speak, stepped directly from the train into Mrs. Carr’s drawing-room. The place was full of women, old and young, and their animated talk blended in a great murmur, against which the notes of a few stringed instruments in the hall above struggled bravely.Mrs. Carr was forcing the season a trifle—it was near the end of September—but the dean of a famous college for women had come to town unexpectedly, and it was not Mrs. Carr’s way to let heat or cold interfere with her social inclinations. Mrs. Forrest and her brother had ceased talking to watch their niece. The girl’s profile was turned to them, and the old gentleman noted the good points of her face and figure. She was talking to several other girls, and it seemed to him that they showed her a deference. Mrs. Forrest was eager for her brother’s approval, and Rodney Merriam was anxious to be pleased; for the girl was of his own blood, and there were reasons why her home-coming was of particular interest to him.===========================================================================CHAPTER XXVIIMR. BALCOMB’S EASY CONSCIENCEEzra Dameron had never been happier than during this summer. His life had run for years an eventless course; his interests had been small and he had been content to have them so. But since the gambler’s passion had fixed its gyves upon him he had become a changed being. He walked with a quicker step; his drooping shoulders grew erect; he was a new man, living in a new paradise that folly was constructing for him. He enjoyed the farm greatly, rising betimes to direct the work of his laborers. He permitted Zelda to drive him in her runabout to the interurban station—a concession in itself significant of a greater deference to the comfort and ease of living.Jack Balcomb’s flat scheme had hung fire during the spring, with only half the stock of the Patoka Land and Improvement Company sold; but Balcomb had taken it up again, determined to carry it through. Dameron always insisted, when Balcomb approached him, that he did not care to sell the tract on the creek which the promoter coveted; but he never rebuffed Balcomb entirely. It had occurred to Dameron that Balcomb might be of use to him. The young man was, moreover, a new species, who talked of large affairs in an intimate way that fell in well with Dameron’s new ideas of business, and he accepted Balcomb at as high a valuation as he ever placed upon any one. Read more