The evening world. Newspaper, December 9, 1922, Page 13

ELSIE SAWYER, his wife, who small-town luxury. she's its wealthiest. ELL, you've failed. That's the truth of the matter. Poulter knows it and Heyward knows it and I know It. Everybody knows it but yo. Why don't you face it'—Elsie Saw- yer paused in mid-breath; searched mentally for further vitriol to pour into the wounds the knives of her wrath were making—‘‘face it Ike a man?" she finally concluded. Keene Sawyer mado no reply; but he fixed his wife with his blank, bright gaze. His silence seemed only to whip her to further frenzies. “The idea! The conceit of it! To think that you, Keene Sawyer, the Superin- tendent of a baby motor-parts factory in a little town in the Middle West, id come to New York and sweep all before you! Efficiency! Of all the men I've ever known, to think that you would be the one to take up ef- ficlency! A man who can’t put a stud in his own shirt cuff without fumbling it! “What you don’t get,” Elsie’s voic whirred on, “but what I do is that we're small-towners—you and I. As for me, I’m proud of it. I hate this city. [hate it! I hate it! It was bad fenough in the winter, and now that summer has turned. it into a hell- hole—— And to sit here night after sight, waiting for you to come home. Never going anywhere. Nobody to go. here with. Nowhere to go if was. Well, you can dé ‘what 4 please, but my mind is made up. I'm not going to stay here any longer. I'm going fome. You can go with me or follow or not—I don't care." She came to the end of the breath which had volleyed these boiling words into the dead air of the midsummer morning; stood pantin, But before he caught it again, Keene Sawyer spoke. A “If you go, you go alone," he said. But he said it tonelessly; and for the first time since their quarrel began the authority went out of his volee. He arose, casting mechanical, search- Ing glances about the room. His oyes fell finally on the rim of a straw ha protruding from under last night paper. He selzed it; made toward the door. Elsie fixed her eyes on his retreat- ing back. Keene was a slight, angu- Jar figure, nervously made, nervously erganized. His coat, falling over his Tound shoulders, alw creased down the Ime of his spine. ome hi pot. I don’t care what you do!" she called after him, quick to perceive.her vantage. All along she had man- pased to keep her voice low; but now @ cutting shrillness guve it something of the quality of a scream, You'll find me all packed and my ticket bought for home. I'm through!" At this—his slim, nervous hand on the knob—Keene turned. For an in- stant he seemed about to speak. But he bit off the word at the very rim of his ips; threw his wife one of his haggard, hopeless glances; opened the door; slammed it; disappeared. OR a while Elsie sat on the counch—motionless, her slender figure bent forward at almost a right angle, her elbows supported by her knees, her face lying in her scooped hands, Then the heat drove her to her feet. She arose and moved listlessly over to the window, where she leaned out and looked at the daf. Tho high city, pressing {t into the tong narrow box which was her M universe, almost shut It away from her, The top of that box was a strip of sky, brassy with heat; one end, a band of river, that seemed to exude a het, blue steam; the other the dusty clang and clatter of Broadway. Across the way, as though she looked into a gigantic mirror, rose the south sidp of that box—a high apartment, exactly like her own, zigzagged along its front with fire escapes. The bottom was a slatternly street lined bith rows of ash barrels and garbage oan: slaie’s weather-sense informed her— ® had become doubly acute after nine aonths in the clty—that to-day was foing to be warmer than yesterday. And yesterday—the last of three days, hot, hotter, hottest—had seemed to sgrape the very limits of her endur- ance. Moving languldly, she walked Mhrough the small living-room to the “gnalier bedroom, to, smallest of all, the dining-room. Everywhere on the furniture thick layers of dust hazed surfaces; everywhere on the ‘pare painted floors thin rolis of dust, Ike the ghosts of mice, flurried back frem her fanning skirts. In the first yesms “he bed had not been made. In the dining-room, the half-eaten break- fat hed not been cleared away; the erange busks, the dried-sp bowls were empry. ‘The owes fe ames pellew pools deside CHARACTERS IN THE COMEDY. / KEENE SAWYER, from Weenana and a fairly big job in a small has been brought up in the lap of DICK GAMMELL, leading banker of Weenana and Elsie’s father. RHODA GAMMELL, Weenana’: 's most interesting invalid because MRS. O'CONNELL, not in the picture but very much of it. MRS. DOLAN, a similarly important character. strips of bacon, soldered by their own fat to the plate. Their undrunk cof- feo, cold and repellent, filled the cups. A “ttle mound of toast sat under a film of melted butter. Her napkin, barely creased, on the table. Keene's, a balled wad in the corner, lay where they had been thrown when the quar- rel—begun thé night before and re- g@umed on rising—reached Its climax. She had let her housekeeping go In the tropical onslaught of the fast three days; now she went to work systematically. She washed and wiped the dishes; stacked them in the dullt- in cabinet; proveeded to the front room; began to mop the floors. But this was not un jous protest against the slatternly ways into which she had fallen; it was merely a trans- lation of that fierce, inner protest into action, Afterward she dusted; made her bed. All the time, the heat of her body grew. Yes, undeniably this was the warmest day yet. Still, some of that heat was thrown of from her own mind—the result of her swift, violent, intensive thinking; for she kept going over and over again her quarrel with Keene, * * ©& thniking of more bitter things she could have said. After a while the ice man came * © © Her duties and responsibiliti were over until dinner-time. In the bathroom she turned on the water tap optimistically marked cold—its coldest was merely tepid—waited until the knitting needle jet half filled the tub, dropped into it. Still! wet, she re- sumed her nightgown and kimono e © © laydownon herbed * * * a palm-leaf fan in her hand © © © lay, her eyes wide open * © ® the fan languidly swaying * © © think- ing. She had told Keeno the truth; her mind was made up. Just as soon as she could pull herself’ together she must pack her. trunk, get to the sta- tion and make. jer reservation. * * © Two days and she would be in Weenana * *. © Weoenana °° © Just saying the word brought a sensation of coolness, so sharp was its connotation of the town’s wide-flunz green quictude. tree-shadowed and breeze-invaded. Involuntarily Elsie stopped her fan as though to substitute for its feverish gusts that clean Western air, dew- chilled, pine-perfumed. H, that morning fresliness of Weenana! Tt Ja the Laby city, on a ridge in a broad valley running north and south. The valley funnel, in co- operation with the luke, first drew over them all stray northern breezes, and then delicately moistened them. Tho Weenanians were justly proud of a city which muintained a green crispness whon vrounding towns Sweltered, wilted, scorched, and finally parched, And Elsie Go mmell, come Elsie Sawyer, accepted position in the Weenana scheme of things. To be daughter of Rhoda Gammell, a famous invalid, and once the moat beautiful woman in the town, was enough to account for this; in addition, to be the daughter of Dike Gammell, the bank President, the finest and perhaps the ablest man in town; and, finally, to cap all, to be Elsie Gammell herself. Ulsie had inherited not al} but much of her mother's beauty; and not all but much of her father's ability. Pictures of her past self fitted be- fore Elsie's set eyes as slowly Khe wielded the fan; gay afternoons with “the bunch''—the small exclusive core of Weenana’s youth—gathered on the who had be- had held an piazza of the comfortable jig-sawed house. Mrs. Gammell, a mass of bil- lowy chiffon in hammock; Elsic herself in a crisp “smock;" the porch table set with a colony of cut- cups; the big cut-glass bowl, in which an ocean of fruit punch gradually melted a mountain of ice * * * great plates of sandwiches and cake * * * striped awnings, * * Sometimes Ree asualy her father’s lean, creased, weatherbeaten face intruded its tired but always un- derstanding smile into the picture She would hear herself asking him for money. * * * Or he would be saying, “Go Mght this month, daughter. Things rather heaped up on me last month, you know." Father was get- ting old, she told herself inconse- quently; there were white streaks in his blond hair, More often, however, appeared her mother’s face, still velvet-eyed, for she emeared artificial shadows of an astounding verisimilitude about her lashes; and still velvet-hatred, for her dye was remarkably successful. Much more often than to her father, she seemed to listen to her mother, to the tales of her past love-affairs, to her vicarious pride in her daughter conquests, her daughter's clot! And somehow all these monologues ended in the same kt “And when you do dear, [ hope you'll pattern y¢ ried life after mine and your father's. You can sew wrert te te fike—protem! tag devotion op his part, accopiing marr - and the slop aa ae a ILLU @evotion on mine. No harsh words— no quarrels. Of course, we've got go0d dispositions, both of us; but I've made it a point always to try to keep as young and os attractive’’—here Mrs. Gammell drew the inevitable hand mirror, always easily accessible, from under the afghan and studied herself—'‘as miy il] health would per- mit, You don't think I've failed, do you, Bisle child?’ Failed? With their lovely home— and from the small-town point of view their luxurious home—e focus for every social impulse in Weenanal! Failed! Sometimes her father’s tired Yace intruded itself at this moment; but Elsio always gave her mother— “YOU'LL FIND ME ALL PACKED AND MY TICKET BOUGHT FOR HOME. and gave sincerely-—the reassurance she craved. “And one thing more, Elsie dear,”’ hes mother would add; ‘tremember this. Never step down from your pedestal, Elsie. Keep yourself always an ideal, Be sure to insist after mar- riage on all those little attentions he's given you beforo marriage. Why your father waite on me by inches."’ UT Keene Sawyer—How did it B happen that, out of all the men in Weenana, she had chosen Keene Sawyer? swiftly in love with him, ax For she had fullen soon as possible after that dance in which she uddenly realized that of all the me she had met in Weenana Keene Saw- yer was the only one who was “‘dif- ferent." What constituted that dil ference it was hard for her to say. Other people said he was visionary. «¢ © But he had a kind of charm. * © © Physically, the difference was obvious enough. His hair, in contrast with the slick locks of the young men in “the bunch," was always storm- tossed. His eyes, in contrast with the clear calm of their eyes, had a—Elsio described it to herself as “a wild sweetness."" His whole make-up, in contrast with their square-cut athleti- cism, was nervous, almost fragile. Oh, yes, she loved Keeno * * ® still loved lim, for that matter. es ELL, of all things—it t Della Dolan! But for the Jove of all the blessed saints, what do ye be doing here? These words, drifting across the airshaft, came through the window which opened above Elsie's head into lier bedroom, Elsie recognized the volce to be that of Mrs. O'Connell, the woman who once a week cleaned the halls and stairs. Another voice— presumably it belonged to Delia Dolan —answered, It bad nothing lke s» pronounced a brogue as that of its interlocutor; nevertheless, there wos ac unctuous softness here and the: as of Iveclund in the second gener- ation, What do Isbe doing here? Why. looking at an apartment, to be sure!"* it “Looking at an apart— Well, it's the world ye are!" p in the world is it! It's mora up in the world the children are! What with my Theresa a stenogra- pher and my Mary a milliner and my Tim a ball-player, sure it’s on E Street we live—Tim Dolan and me, Why, Mrs, O'Connell—" There followed settling sounds as of highly starched skirts cracklin: the faint groanings of a large body lowering itself with care and dubiety, the serunch of a hastily moved pail of overfiow wre Dolan was seated woman ly Mrs a moment, ore nnell's at the hall sink Just 4 moment be laving you. Thes we Complete « ence es Mra, O'Coa- DY, ROBERT ~ COMPLETE Maree / INEZ HAYES IRWI. E JOHNSTON xX a nell's trundling steps died down the hall, K child, His father was clerk in Dike Gammell's bank; there is Uttle to say about him, His mother ‘was his father's wife; there is oven less to say about As for Koene himself—he was a strange lad, strong on mathematics, which he seemed to absorb without effort into his system, and the brief, tepid wash of disjointed facts which the Weenana High School Presented as eclence, He was corre- spondingly weak in literature, lan- guage, history and geography. His teachers recognized that he was Dril- Nant and original; put they were puz- ERNE SAWYER was an only zled by him. Keene had a faculty rather dimcult to describe. In a sentence, it was a power of doing any bit of work in the briefest possible time, resulting from what was apparently a driving passion to perform it with the fewest possibie number of motions. He was mother’s boy. He helped about the house in the most willing and docile brought in the wood and coal; hed and wiped the dishes, made beds—swept, oven, and dusted, when- demanded thepe His mother had first noted hi when it came after meals to the carting the dishes from the dining-room to the kitchen. She herself always brought them out as they came to her hand—the meat platter and the cream pitcher, cheek by jowl, And everything went into the dishpan together; china, gicss and silver, As housckeepers go, she was clean; but she was far from scientific. Mrs. Sawyer happened upon Keene once, standing immobile before the dining-room table, still spread with the remains of the devoured dinner, contemplating the savory ruin with the fixed eyes of one in a trance, “Hurry up, Keene!" she admon- ished, ‘You'll never get them dishes done, lallygugging like this!’ “{’'m not lallysagging!" he retorted “I'm only trying to figure out he few trips I can get ‘em all out to the kitchen in.* This made no impression on Mrs. Sawyer's mind. But a few nights later, passing through her kitchen, her attention was caught by some- thing that did. Keene's performance on this occasion had something of the vehearsed military precision of a vaudey glasses neatly piled; silver neatly gathered; plates neatly stacked came in that order from the dining room plump into fresh relays of hot w But, dried, they ro- turned in a different order; glasses first, to the « shelves in th kitehen; china ond, to the china cabinet in the dining room corner, nearest the kitchen; silver last, to the sideboard under the window. By degrees her kitchen was trans formed. Mrs. Sawyer's house grad ually became the best systematized in Weenana. Then one afternoon—he would graduate in three months Keene came home from the publ brary with a book, somewhere tn whose title appeared the word Eff clenc For thé rest of the evening he deaf and dumb, Books they all bore the wor@ Fificiency somewhere in the title Uowed one ssion into the prow With the author opened a corres pondene t ait was) part at } 1 1 long Books came from this friend, pamp| lets, catalogues. He haunted the few manufacturing planta Weenene Came graduation, came his job in George Weir's automobile-parts fac- tory; came three years of work and of promotion so steady that it was ap- parent Weir had no intention of losing his superintendent tf liberal treatment could prevent it; came midsummer and— “Mother, I'm getting six weeks’ vacation this year, You see, I haven't taken any for three summers, 80 I've got all my vacations saved up. I'm going to Chicago. There's a man I've been corresponding with for three or Mia Obi eet Pine four years now—he's an efficiency ex- Dert. He seemed to be interested to show me some plants in Chicago, and he's invited me to come op and sco him.'"* The visit to the efficiency expert-— there need be no secret of the fact that it was Adams—was highly suc- cessful, Adams bared the mannu- facturing heart of Chicago to Keene. It filled Keeno with new ideas. It resulted in a friendship so strong that on Keene's announcement of his gement to Elsie Gammell, Adama ested that ho go to Ni York; offered to get him a job with the Poulter & Heyward Yeast Cako Com- pany, The salary looked, from Wee- nana’s standard, large. There followed marriage; the honeymoon trip to New York; the hunt for an apartment; the making of the home steady chapter after chapter in Elsio's book of dis- illusions. Nesistless stage on stage in Keene's experienco of despair. ne Dl Again Mra from the hall sink, broke stridently O'Connell, returning into Elsie's meditations. Had thoso long thoughts consumed but theso fow brief moments? “There's nobody coming up these stairs this hour, but I'l! be laving my pail here—handy-like if they did. Now tell me all about everything, woman dear, How often do I mind me whe you and me were friends te gether, Sure my heart was broke when Tim Dolan stopped off long enough from the coal wagon to court you right under me eyes—as you might say, Tell me about the chil When last I seen you, your Tim was getting into throuble bre ing windows." dren. ke “Tis true! Oh, the money pail out for that boy's ball hot Tims it was an inver now Jook at 'm! A. bail-p ith his name in every new you take up. Oh, it's a public char- zcter he is, Why, the lad earns’ Mrs. Dolan's voic ank as she con- fided financial secrets of a momen- tous nature. And for an interval the two voices, relating intimate gossip, kept to a uniform level, a bit above a whisper. HAT year in New York [ an exper B welled in Klsie’s heart hts traversed the smooth! es of memory What tterne ience! Virst had come the shock of rents tliat matehed the soaring building then the lowering, notch by not t standard f n living, until ¢ at the n fi lea In a che a t r 1 uptown nelghbe 1 followed her gradual realization of the phyinkage of the dollar in the welring- I'm THROUGH!" } gent financial atmosphere of the conversation began across the eleva- ‘metropolis. tor shaft. Mrs. Dolan was speaking. When the Sawyers came to New There was something pleasant, al- York they knew nobody; and after most cooling in the round voice with nine months of living there they still its ghost of an Irish accent. knew nobody. Nevertheless, they were young, very much in love—the pano- 66€) © old Tim Is always saving to res of that first year’s season coe young Tim, ‘put ut away, almost have sufficed, if it had not been vy for the summer. Tt le true that th0 iushend, rice, Denne wore amen winter had seemed @ long drawn out usban irs. Dolan’s voice assumed agony of cutting winds, a frost biting ® thickness of brogue normally alien bitterness almost personal; but they to it. ‘The time'll come when you'll were accustomed to cold winters. And want ut, the spring compensated for every- on . thing. Indeed, the spring— cris teed Morea bist Pon: It seemed to Elste Sawyer that she O'Connell questioned, had never scen anything so poignantly = *"Frine,"* Mra, Dolan answered. “‘An’ you say Molly Ryan isn't mak- ing Joe a good wife!" “Fur from it! There's not a mo-, ment that the two be together that they're not quarreling. ‘Twas this way: Molly was as pretty and modest a girl as ever you seen. And at first ahe kept the house as neat as a pin. But then Joe came home every night all white and dusty from the works, and Molly used to scold 'm for dirty- ing the house. Joe wouldn't mend his ways—it's the contrary tad he's a«f- ways been, And then—Molly had a perverseness too, And after awhile she grew careless-like. And now you should see their house—a pigpen tt tet"? “°Tis a pity!’ elghed. Mrs. O'Connell ‘For wanco they go that not often they get loving agaln. “Tia tho true word you said,'* Mrs. Dolan agreed “And yet 'tis very annoying to have @ man come home and tramp dirt all over a clano house,’ Mrs. O'Connell observed pensively. , “Tis right you are again, Mra. O'Connell sald Mrs, Dolan, “I re- member—"* She paused; her voice seemed to melt away and merge with oncoming revery; but she pulled her- self out of it. ‘Tt takes me back twenty-five years to the beginning of my own married life, I shall never forget the first night Tim Dolan came home after his day's work. Before God, woman dear, I did not know 'm. 1 was looking out the dure when the gate opened. I looked up, and at first I thought It was a naygur—he was that black with the coal dust. But when he kept on coming, I saw it was Tim, It gave me a turn, When he came into my knitchen I felt strange- like—as if it wasn't my own -man. Well, ho washed his hands.and facd’” at the sink, and we sat down to the table to eat. You mihd what a clean creature I was—" Never have-thene-eyes: gazed on the like,"’ Mrs, O'Connell reassured her. “All that eventng, I felt strange- like. And all that night in bed—I kept thinking of ‘Tim lying beside mo covered with the coal dust. The next night, when Tim came home, I had a great tub of suds on the floor in front of the stove, waiting for 'm, and I wouldn't give 'm his dinner ull he tuk a bath!" “Oh, the strange craychure you ore!’’ Again Mrs, O'Connell laughed with an exquisite enjoyment, ‘And what did Tim say?" “At first he wouldn't, but in the end he did." Again Mrs. Dolan paused. “And the next night, when he comes home, there was another: tub of suds waiting ‘m--and the neat and the next.” “And how did Tim Ifke that?” “At Orst not at all, But I put my foot down, And after a while, ho couldn't do without it, For, as you pathette, so accumulatingly lovely as that New York spring. How it came— looking back at it now—was a puzzle; its first timid approach was so tenta- five. Its final onrush so swift, One day the atr fermented with an acute oft sweetness; when she walked in the park, tiny, hard, tight rolled jade green points were pricking out from bare brown stalks. Another day—and whonever she looked down from her window, it was on wagons loaded with blooming spring flowers, the men who peddled them calling in hoarse voices what seemed unintelligible pacans to Tan, Balloons bloomed miraculously in children’s hands. Oh, yes, the spring. . . . the summer— The steps by which that soft-sweet, fresh, fragrant New York spring merged with te stagnant, dead New k summer were beyond the powers But of Elsie's analysis to follow, And yet say, the scrubbing ernychure I am! she could have stood even that, {f Mow I used to scrub bis back! And Keene had been successful. what fun we did be having! The two of us laughing like a pair of children! And sometimes we'd get to throwing soapsuds at each other Poulter, the senior partner in the firm, theoretically interested before Keene's arrival, had on acquaintance with Keene's ideas lost all bellef In ‘Throwing soapsuds! Mrs. O'Con- them. Heyward, the junior partner, nell repeated. ‘'Go along with you!" was interested; but he was dificult, 2 ‘it was ten long years my Tim kept quibbling, querying bully, Keene had fought for his ideas with every power of his belief in them—with gentleness, with tact, with firmness, with obst!- nacy, with the courage of his despair on the coal wagon before they put him on the weighing, But after he'd sot on the weighing, every night when he came home, there was the tub of suds just the same. And the adlfte and the despair of his courage. But ence it made in 'm! He'd be that tir he was losing—losing inch by Inch je was ready to drop when he ¢ and day by day. in. But after that warm tub, ‘twas And then in addition—a much moré jike a fAghting-cock he was. Then, serious matter—their marriage, a% when the ethidren began to earn certainly as Keene's theortes, was de- money, they teased me to move into veloping Into a failure, All the poetry an apartment house where thero was a bathroom, "Twas a proud man ‘Tim was when he took his first bath in a bathtub, I scrubbed his back every had gone out of ft, all that romance, that high glamour of idealism to which Elsie had determined hold so punctiliously. Little attentions! Why, night, for 'm just toe speie fll Keene showed her no attentions, little Marri was ¢ r a N ittien or big. He was too absorbed in the days," Mrs, O'Connell sig naa, with business problems that confronted him @ eh, 6 eee Sy jeidng aye ae daily. Her long days were lonely, and Ike getting m 4 hone ays, think sometimes it seemed to her that her pelt of eRe re note Whee h nd long evenings were lonelier still, be wetting « 7 rs yi Keeno got home too late for them to al! they asks, Sitk stockings and think ef going enywhere; or, worse Nigh heeled shors, and feathers ati ih, a nGkina ts jowder and paint! Cud ye imagine st 0 sted from his daily Powder an ied eeeey i every night of their lives, so's to give nothing after his apathetic dinner but Nroteh out on the couch; end then bimgel & bath when he got homer” “Marriage is a quare thing,’ pro sp ec i Grek frome bis Hewepaner So troubled, utgated Mrs. Dolan, ‘Mostly the intermittent napping. women gets the best out of it. Mostly Elsie often contrasted her marrage it's hardest on the men, With a with that of her parents, What would her mother say? On what her father would say it never occurred to her to reflect, Well, she would never give up the struggle to keep the little atten- " to hold her place as an “deat. family coms along, ther's need for a lot of money, And it's the man who has to earn it. Women has their bothers, the blessed Virgin herself knows; but when all's said and done It's the softest for them The pile of Keene's laundry, which [¢ she don’t make it pleasant for ad started la night wran . WY her husband as she can when he's on the ehiffonier top. Her lips set. in the house, she's no true wil Ss would carry out her threat If And if she don’t work her hands to went ahead to Weenana--Keene the bone to keep 'm healthy and bou 0 follow She would go, handsome and young, she's no truce would go to-day bi woman. I have no use for thos: She rose again to pack. But the Lttle alipper-solps who thinks they're Senate occas, La eS cae as s \ ‘ \ BOs NOVELETTE New York an Weenana_ an How a és can Cha ite @) queens, and tries to make a tired-out working man wait on ‘m by inches eves: Going minute," HEN he catte down’ the stepe of the elevated, «| woman came forward to meet hit. She was so different from the figure he had visualized in his mind thet Keene started in astonishment. He had expected to see Elsie in a travel< ing gown; suit case in hand; the look still in her eyes of a raging defiance. Instead—it was evident ti she was not leaving town that ~she was a vision of coolness. She wore a light ruffled silk gown, .euph as he had not seen%since last sum~ mer in Weenana, a transparent, black tulle hat, through which her hate glistened like pulled candy; acces sories of gloves and stockings ema shoes, all of the most summery or der. It was true she carried what looked like traveling paraphernalie— © big straw hamper. This, she im~ mediately handed to him with a— “Oh, here you are Keene! Take this, please. I thought you'd like te take a little walk with me before dim~ ne ‘We're gong to dine out to-night/* she vouchsafed gently, and proceeded east. “Don't talk, Keene: here! Here's the place!” she ed. She stepped off the txphart nto the grass, threaded her way among the trees until they caught up with a tiny flashing. brook which dropped from a pool near the reser- voir and, making baby-waterfalls of ita leaps from rock to rock, ended finally by trickling into the lake. Elsie found a soft spot near the tinkle, in the shadow of a tree. “There, dear!"’ she sald, “Sit down so that your back {s against the trink. Take your coat off, if you'd like.’* Kneeling beside him, she opened the hamper. Appeared a picnic meal, ex: pertly packed, delicately organized, Keene had not yet emerged. from his daze, But suddenly he found hiniself tavenously hungry. He’ ate with the air of a starving man. Elsto ate with him, but more slowly.. Mueh of the time she was talking. I've made up my mind, Keene,’ she sald, “that a long as this ‘hot spell Insts I'm going to meet ‘you every night, and we'll eat here in the Park.,* * * You don’t..need, hot fgod in weather like this, and you ought not to take that awful trtp'in the subway in the tush ligur, "* 9 * We'll have our supper here, and then, when it cools off, we'll go home at our leisure.” She rambled off on a description of how, during lonely walks in the spring, she had found thin spot. Keene ate and listened. All the time the shadows grew longer, the little brook purled its song into the interstices of her talk. After he had eaten, Keene produced a cigaret; leaned back against the tree and listened again. 66K TOW, there's sofnething more,’* N Elsie said after a long in- terval in which by turns, they had quietly talked and. quietly meditated. ‘It's a special treat I'm going to give you to-night. I'm afratd we can't afford it every night, though."* She led him to the direction of the lake. An hour later Elsie was still rowing on the miniature ocean, Other boats passed, but they seemed to- belong to another world; to be sliding along an- other dimension., The sunset had long ago faded away, but a line of shore lights gave a distant gayéty to their voyage; thelr reflections stood upright in the water like long goldan qomet- rockets. . pricking out one by one until they lay In dense shining musses, had cooled off the sky. A delicate breeze Coated ‘about them. Keene still lay in the bow of the boat, his head on the pillow which Elsie had miraculously extemporized from the hamper, his face, from which all the tullowy fatiguo had évaporuted, turned up to the stars. “T bad an awful fight with Heyward to-day, Hlste,"" he sald. ‘And 1 thought 1 was going to tell him to- morrow that I'd get through Satur- day night, But T see now he wasn't all wrong, and that [ was a-good deal to blame, Of course, 1 came into the office this morning In a mood that—— This coolness and quiet has given me a chance to think. What you've just been saying now about marriage being different from an engagement * * * about the give and take of it* * * and the pulling together * * * makes me 1 that A business issjust Hke No one in the concern can ull his own way. I'm going into the office to-morrow and tell Heyward I'll give in on half his points: if he'll give In on half of mine, He'll do it, too. He's a square guy. As much as he irritates me, 1 really ke him. Some time, Elsie, I'd like to invite him to dinner. Elsie, you've done a jot for me to-night—I can't tell you how much. I wasallin*’ ¢¢T was at the end of my rope. You've helped me around a hard corner. You've handed mea. cup of eold Keene,"’ Elsie said; for sud- denly she had a vision ef two ia a kitchen, a big Irishman and a Big hwoman, throwing suds at each de a ro ritual, it was a y ma atly water of their nb cup of cold All rights reserved.) ‘angoment with Metropgtitem. jervice, New Yorks & 2 oe. oe 94 RS SecA Sa RUINS, em ce a,