BY MEREDITH NICHOLSON
BROKEN BARRIERS
BEST LAID SCHEMES
THE MAN IN THE STREET
BLACKSHEEP! BLACKSHEEP!
LADY LARKSPUR
THE MADNESS OF MAY
THE VALLEY OF DEMOCRACY
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
BROKEN BARRIERS
BROKEN BARRIERS
BY
MEREDITH NICHOLSON
NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
1922
Copyright, 1922, by
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
Copyright, 1921, 1922, by THE INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE CO.
Printed in the United States of America
Published September, 1922
TO
RAY LONG
WITH AFFECTIONATE REGARD
AND IN TOKEN OF
THE OLD HOOSIER FELLOWSHIP
OF MONTGOMERY AND BOONE
BROKEN BARRIERS
BROKEN BARRIERS
CHAPTER ONE
I
As the train sped through the night Grace Durlanddecided that after all it didn’t matter so much!
She had parted tearfully from the girls at thesorority house and equally poignant had been the goodbyesto her friends among the faculty; but now thatit was all over she was surprised and a little mystifiedthat she had so quickly recovered from her disappointment.Bitterness had welled in her heart at thefirst reading of her mother’s letter calling her home.Her brother Roy, always the favored one, was to remainat the University to finish the law course, forwhich he had shown neither aptitude nor zeal, andthis hurt a little. And they might have warned herof the impending crisis in the family fortunes beforeshe left home to begin the fall term, only amonth earlier.
But her resentment had passed. The spirit ofadventure beat in her breast with strong insistentwing. With the fatalism of imaginative youth shewas already assuring herself that some force beyondher control had caught her up and was bearing heron irresistibly.
She lay back at ease in her seat in the daycoach, grateful that there were no acquaintances onthe train to interrupt her reveries. She was twenty-one,[2]tall, slightly above medium height and boreevery mark of sound health and wholesome living—afair representative of the self-reliant American girlsvisible on the campus of all Mid-Western colleges.The excitement of her hasty packing and leave-takinghad left a glow in her olive cheeks. Her hair, whereit showed under her sport hat, was lustrous black;her eyes were brown, though in shadow they changedto jade,—variable, interesting eyes they were, thatarrested attention by their quick play of emotion.They expressed her alert intelligence, her frank curiosity,her sympathetic and responsive nature.
When the train reached Indianapolis she left hertrunk check w