Part 5

Outside she walked to the street car. She had no plan. She did not intend to go to his office. She was simply getting away from his home.

She went into a department store and idly looked at some things without knowing what they were. It was a sale day, and the crowd in the store was immense. She came to herself when a sharp cry sounded at her right and the throng surged in that direction.

A woman had fainted, one of the saleswomen. She was a tall woman, thin and not bad looking. She had been waiting on Viola the moment before, and she had simply crumpled behind the counter without a word. The cry had come from a cash-girl who happened to see her fall. They lifted the woman and carried her limp and pitiful to the elevator, a policeman keeping back the crowd.

She left the store and wandered again aimlessly about the streets. The sidewalks were crowded, mostly with women. It was getting warm, and the women all looked tired and wilted. Lines of them disappeared into certain doors, and Viola, looking in, saw that these doors were entrances to cheap restaurants. It was the lunch hour, and these women were taking their short recess.

The display in the window of one of these places attracted her attention. It contained meats in various stages of preparation and dressing and a wild assortment of vegetables. Some flies had gotten inside the glass and hovered about the viands. She turned away in disgust.

She thought of her own lunch. When she was downtown St. John always took her to lunch with him at one of the hotels. The white napery, the soft lights, the stealthy-footed waiters, the music, the silver sprang into her mind in vivid contrast to the cheap display she had just turned from. She shuddered.

In the palm room of the Brinton with the cool, shadowed comfort about her and an ice before her, the thought of her tragedy returned. She had been evading it all day, putting it away from her, shunning it. But it was always with her, reminding her that her world, the life she had lived, was shattered.

What then? She must go away. It would be better to go quietly, without giving any reason, simply leave. Of course St. John would understand, as would Myrtle Weiss, but their guilt would seal their tongues.

Disappear? And then what? How would she live? What could she do? She was incompetent to teach. She knew nothing about office work. Of course, she could clerk in a store.

Suddenly a vision of what that life would mean to her passed deadeningly before her. She remembered the thin, tall woman who had fainted behind the counter without a word. The lines of wilted workers, hastening in their worn clothes to their cheap lunches, rose before her. She shivered.

For seven years she had lived in the lap of luxury. Nothing had been denied her. She had the best of clothes, the best of service, the choicest of food, the promptest of attention of every kind. Her home was one of the handsomest houses in the most restricted and stylish residence district of the city.

Another thought came to her. No one knew that she had found the letter.

The clock in the palm room showed the time to be one-thirty. St. John, she knew, was out of town.

She rose quickly and left the room. At the office Miss Johnson, the stenographer, had just returned from the dairy lunch across the street. She was powdering her rather unattractive nose. Mrs. Perin smiled at her as she entered her husband's room. Vaguely she envied this homely creature.

The table was undisturbed, exactly as she had left it.

She sealed the letter carefully and replaced it on the top of the little pile of mail upon the blotter.

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HOUSEWORK--AND THE MAN

By Freeman Tilden

"And you live here--all alone?" she said.

"It looks it, doesn't it?" replied Archer, with a little embarrassed grin. "I have a woman come in once a week to clean up. I do the rest--when it gets done. I suppose it looks pretty bad--to you."

She ran her finger appraisingly along the table and held it up. It was covered with dust. She laughed. "Men can't keep house," she said.

She rummaged around until she found a rag that would serve as a duster.

"Now, please don't bother, Miss----" he began.

"I'm married," she corrected soberly. "_Mrs._ Kincaid."

"Well, Mrs. Kincaid, please don't bother to do that. Really, I'm afraid I enjoy dirt."

"Nobody enjoys dirt," was her severe reply. "Not if they can be clean."

He sat and watched her. He couldn't help laughing. With deft hands she seemed to fathom every hiding-place of dust. And he noticed that her cheeks, which had been pale enough when she came in, were becoming radiant.

Pretty soon she turned her attention to the bed. "Well, of all the messes I ever saw!" she exclaimed. "Who ever showed you how to make up a bed?"

"You just watch me," she told him. "Like this--and then like this--then you smooth it out--see?"

"It sure does look better," he admitted. "But please don't poke around in the kitchen. At least spare me that mortification."

She didn't heed his plea. "I thought so!" she exclaimed. "Not a dish washed!"

"I was going to wash them this afternoon," said Archer humbly.

"Huh! don't you know it's twice as hard after you let them stand? Where's the dishcloth?"

"Oh, come now, really, I won't have you----"

She paid no attention to him. "What pretty dishes!" she said, as the hot water began to run.

"Five-and-ten cent store," Archer laughed.

"Really? And they look much prettier than mine. Do you know, I think this is a dear little place."

"Dishwashing is the worst part of it," said the young man.

"Listen," she told him. "Whenever the dishes have egg on them, don't put the hot water on first. Watch me...."

She even insisted on rearranging his little closet of dishes. She cleaned the top of the gas range. Archer vainly tried to prevent her. She was singing now, as she worked. She straightened the pictures on the wall. She averred that she couldn't be happy till she had swept the place from end to end.

After it was all over they sat down facing each other. There was a pink flush of satisfaction on her cheeks.

"And I never knew who lived up here," she began. "I must say you're quiet. These apartment houses are just like a lot of cigar boxes. You know our flat is right underneath."

"It's so decent of you," began Arthur.

"Listen," she interrupted. "I've had a perfectly splendid time. I suppose I must be going now. It's five o'clock, isn't it?"

He nodded.

At the door she stopped and said, "I've often seen you down at the street door, and wondered whether you'd speak some time. You don't think--because I came in here----"

"I think nothing," he said.

"I _knew_ you were that kind of a fellow," she whispered, and fled downstairs.

* * * * *

Kincaid came in at 6:10.

"Supper ready?" he asked.

She threw down the magazine she was reading. "I guess you won't starve! It's nothing but cook, cook all the time, anyway. I'm getting tired of it."

Kincaid said nothing. His fingers were resting on the dining-table. When he took them away there were little patches of varnish showing through the dust.

She went out into the kitchen and wearily put on a torn apron. The sink was full of unwashed dishes. He saw them and was unwise enough to comment on what he saw.

She turned upon him like a flash.

"If you don't like to see them, wash them yourself," she said. "I'm sick of housework, anyway."

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HER MEMORY

By Dwight M. Wiley

Warrington had really no right to be angry.

He was not engaged to Virginia, merely engaged with her in a somewhat tempestuous summer flirtation. Down in his heart he knew it for just that. But he was angry no less, for she had allowed a "hulking ass" newly arrived at the Inn to "hog her whole program and make him look a fool before every one."

"Ah ha!" cried the still small voice, "so it's Pride not Heart." And that made him more angry than ever.

So he went away from the ball-room, out onto the dim veranda, and strode up and down muttering things better left unmuttered. Presently he stopped at the far shadowed end, lit a cigarette, snapped his case viciously, and said "damn."

A demure voice just behind him said "shocking!" and he turned to confront a small figure in a big chair backed up against the wall.

"I repeat, shocking," said the voice--a very nice voice. And giggled--a very ripply little gurgly little giggle.

His anger went away.

"Mysterious lady of the shadows," he said (he was very good at that sort of thing),"does my righteous wrath amuse you?"

He came nearer. He had thought he knew every girl at the Hotel. Here was a strange one, and pretty. Very. He decided that monopolizing Virginia had been a mistake.

"It's not a night for wrath, righteous or otherwise. See!" and she stretched out her arms to the great moon hanging low over the golf links beyond.

He hunted for a chair. This was bully. And when he had drawn one up, quite close:

"Whence do you come, all silvery with the moon, to chide me for my sins, moon maid?"

Without doubt he was outdoing himself.

She laughed softly and leaned toward him, elfin in the pale shimmer of light. "I am Romance," she breathed, "and this is my night. The night, the moon, and I conspire to make magic."

He secured a slim hand. The pace was telling. His voice was a little husky.

"Your charms are very potent, moon maid," he said, "it is magic, isn't it? It--it doesn't happen like this--really."

Their eyes met--clung.

"You--you take my breath," he stammered. "Does your heart mean what your eyes are saying? Don't--don't look at me like that unless you do--mean it."

She didn't answer in words. She, too, was breathing quickly.

He released her hand, and sprang up--half turned away. Then he dropped to the arm of her chair. Swiftly he took her face in his two hands. The throbbing of her throat intoxicated him. "I--I--love me," he stammered.

Her lips moved. A sob more poignant than words. They kissed for a long time.

There were footsteps down the veranda. She drew away. She recognized her mother's voice and Miss Neilson's. She was thinking very quickly. Should she send him away or end it now--end it all now?

"You darling--you darling. I--I love you," he was saying.

She leaned to him. "Kiss me. Kiss me--quickly."

The voices were quite close now.

"Mother," she called, "here I am." She laughed. "But I guess you know I wouldn't run away. Mother, this is Mr.--ah--Brown, and we have been discussing--doctors. Mr. Brown has an uncle in exactly my condition. Hopelessly paralyzed."

She said it calmly. The world reeled. His brain was numb. She was being wheeled away by the nurse. A wheeled chair--God!

"Good-night," she called.

A cripple. He had kissed her. Horrible! He made for the bar.

In her room while the nurse was making her ready for bed, the mother said, "How strange you look, dear. And how--how beautiful."

She flung her arms wide in an intoxication of triumph. "Mother," she half sobbed, "all my life to now I've been just--just a thing. A cripple. Now--now--I am a woman."

"Oh, God!" she cried, her eyes starry. "Life is good--good. For now--now I have--a Memory."

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HIS JOURNEY'S END.

By Ruth Sterry

Fog enfolded the city in a drenching white veil.

It clung to the windows of the Palace Hotel and shut out the light from the bedroom in which a man sat earnestly penning a letter. It seemed to make an effort at entrance as though it would blot from the paper the words he wrote.

"Palace Hotel, Wednesday morning.

"Dear Miss Arliss,

"It seems strange to call you that when I am about to ask you to be my wife. Yet what can I do when I have seen you only once?

"You surely remember, do you not, that one day when you and I met and were held prisoners by the train wreck in the San Joaquin Valley, you said I might call on you when I returned to San Francisco after my trip to the Orient? But you could not have dreamed what your permission meant to the lonely, business-bound coffee merchant who long ago, in the poisonous lands of South America, had shut his heart to women's smiles, and had turned deaf ears to the music of their voices.

"Nor can I ever hope to make you understand what it meant during the long journeying that followed the wreck. The memory of you with your cheeriness, your undaunted smile in all the hardship of that wreck, has brought new life to me.

"For eight months I have dreamed of you day and night. During that time I have not once lost the picture of heated desert waste, the ugly wreckage of the train, the groaning, weeping people--and you, a girl with tender eyes, a smile of sympathy for the unluckiest devil, and ready resourcefulness to ease pain that would have done credit to an army nurse. I have dreamed of you in my home--awaiting my coming with your radiant smile.

"And so, unable to come to you in simple friendship, I thought it best to write first and explain. I wanted to come with your permission granted after you knew that I love you--I love you. I like to write the words, I want you for my wife.

"I stopped on my way from the station to buy all the flowers I could find to send with this note. I chose spring blossoms because they are so much like you.

"I am waiting with mad impatience for your answer. Do not regard my love lightly. It springs from the unspent passions, the unfulfilled ideals of a lifetime. Oh, my dear, speed your answer back to me. Say I may come to you--now.

"Yours to eternity, "John Marble."

It was three o'clock in the afternoon before the fog lifted. It vanished before the piercing rays of the bright spring sun. At the windows of the Palace Hotel little rays of sunlight struck aslant the glass as though merrily demanding admission. They poured through the windows of John Marble's room and illumined his face as he, with trembling fingers, opened a note a messenger had brought. A single sunbeam fell on the paper, blurring the lines so that he shifted it to read:

"600 Pacific Avenue, Wednesday afternoon.

"Mr. John Marble,

"Dear Sir:

"We put your flowers on her coffin to-day. She was like the spring blossoms which she loved. They hold your letter to her buried in the depths of their bloom. She had made my life a heaven for five bright months. I am trying to bear God's will.

"Her husband, "Morrison Grey."

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FOOD FOR THOUGHT

By Harriet Lummis Smith

Forbes had bribed his way past the gateman and stood on the station platform at the foot of the stairs, his manner drearily resigned. He had come to meet a girl and he did not fancy the job.

"Hang it, man," he had protested, when Keith Chandler, his partner, summoned to New York by a telegram, had deputed Forbes to meet the four o'clock train, and incidentally, his sister-in-law. "I shouldn't know the girl."

"I've never seen her myself," his friend reminded him. "She was in Japan when Agnes and I were married, studying decorative art. Cabled she'd come home for the wedding if we'd postpone it three months." Chandler indulged himself in a smile of reminiscent scorn.

"If Mrs. Chandler would accompany me," said Forbes, brightening. He really liked his partner's wife, partly because her devotion to her husband made unnecessary those defenses he was accustomed to erect about himself in the society of women under sixty. Chandler's answer shattered his hopes.

"If Agnes could leave the baby it wouldn't be necessary to trouble you. But the little thing's under the weather. Nothing serious, but you couldn't bribe Agnes out of the house till the child's herself again. And you won't have any trouble picking Diantha out of the crowd. She looks like Agnes," Chandler ended complacently. "There won't be two of that kind on any one train, my boy."

Forbes, immaculate in his gray business suit, frowningly scanned the crowd hurrying past, the rabble of men with suit-cases on ahead, the women following more deliberately. Heavens, what a swarm of women! Forbes saw himself addressing the wrong girl and snubbed for his pains.

Then all in a moment a figure took on distinction, a girl splendidly tall, who carried herself as if proud of every inch, who walked the station platform in a fashion suggesting that she could dance all night, and go horseback riding in the morning. Yes, she was like Mrs. Chandler, only larger, handsomer, more stunning in a word. Hat in hand he approached her.

"Miss Byrd, I believe."

The girl halted, facing him squarely. He had no time for explanations. A well-shaped, perfectly gloved hand rested lightly on either shoulder. He had a bewildering impression of a tall figure swaying toward him, of a fragrance too elusive to be called perfume, of gray eyes flecked with violet. Then her lips touched his.

"Miss Byrd, indeed!" She was laughing in his face. "You are my first and only brother, young man, and I warn you I shall make you live up to the part." One hand slipped from his shoulder and through his arm. He found himself walking beside her, following the porter who carried her satchels, and listening mechanically to a flow of words which fortunately required no reply.

The affair was a hideous nightmare. Mistaking him for Chandler, whom she had never seen, this unsuspecting girl had kissed him before a hundred witnesses. Most appalling of all, an explanation seemed an unthinkable brutality. When once she knew, she could never look him in the face again. It was essential to keep her in ignorance of her blunder till he left her at Chandler's door.

Not till they were seated in a taxicab did she ask a direct question. This was fortunate, as Forbes had been incapable of an intelligent reply.

"How's the baby, Keith?"

"The baby--oh, yes, the little thing has been slightly under the weather." As he repeated the information imparted by Chandler earlier in the day, Forbes blushed to his ears.

"Little darling!" murmured the girl. "How many teeth has she?"

"Teeth! Oh--I--the usual number, I believe."

"I'm awfully ignorant, Keith. I ought to be ashamed to confess it, but I really don't know what is the usual number for a child of six months."

Vainly she waited for enlightenment. Forbes' answer was a tortured smile. His agonized prayer that she might change the subject was granted all too soon.

"How's Reggie?"

"I beg pardon." Forbes' jaw dropped. His Christian name was Reginald.

"Mr. Forbes. I prefer to call him Reggie. Do you admire him as extravagantly as Agnes does? Then I see I shall be forced to conceal my prejudice to keep peace in the family."

"Prejudice? You are prejudiced against him?"

"Of course. Such a bundle of perfection."

"Oh, no." Forbes spoke with generous earnestness. "He's not that at all. Just an ordinary good sort."

"Then you think I shall like him?"

The innocent question stabbed him. "No," Forbes said after a long pause. "You won't like him." In his heart he felt he was understating the case. She would regard him with abhorrence. Every moment this deception continued, even though practised to spare her feelings, added to her righteous grievance. The pain in his voice as he spoke was a surprise to himself.

"He must be a singular person," mused the girl. "Agnes vows he is perfection. You reassure me by acknowledging him human, and yet you are certain I won't like him. Or is that because I am so unreasonable?"

"Really, Miss Byrd----"

He thought she was going to kiss him again, she leaned toward him so swiftly. His heart stood still though his mood could be hardly characterized as shrinking. But she confined herself to beating a tattoo against his arm with a little clenched fist.

"I won't be Miss Byrd to my only brother, I _won't_! Say Diantha."

"Di-an-tha."

"You say it as if it were Keren-Happuch. Try it again."

He stammered out the three melodious syllables. He was thinking less of her name than of her eyes. There were golden mischievous lights swimming like motes in the blue, and her drooping lashes made black shadows. She turned her head and the curve of her neck was distracting.

"Why, he's stopping," Diantha cried. "Are we there?"

Incredible as it seemed, they were at Chandler's door. "Wait," Forbes said to the driver, his voice hoarse. He took Diantha's arm to assist her up the steps and she looked at him wonderingly.

"Aren't you coming in?"

"Not just now." Forbes forced a smile. It was possible that they would never meet again, and if they did, her friendliness would have been transformed into implacable enmity. He extended his hand. "Good-bye," he whispered.

"_Au revoir._" His agreeable doubt whether her ideals of sisterliness would lead her to something more affectionate than a handclasp was merged in disappointment. The door swung open and she disappeared. Forbes went back to the cab in a dejection only

## partially dissipated by Mrs. Chandler's note next day.

"Dear Mr. Forbes:

"Can't you dine with us Friday? We have all enjoyed a good laugh over Diantha's absurd mistake.

"Cordially yours, "Agnes Byrd Chandler."

Forbes' uncertainty as to how far Mrs. Chandler was in her sister's confidence was unenlightened three weeks later when he asked Diantha to marry him. He had waited three weeks, not from choice, but because he had been unable to induce that elusive young woman to listen to him earlier.

She looked past him, her changeful eyes sombre and sad like the sea under clouds. "I can't say yes," she murmured plaintively, "without owning up. And if I own up, you'll want me to say no."

"Diantha!" he faltered. Used as he was to feminine extravagance in speech, her words chilled him.

She turned her tragic gaze on him. "I knew it was you all the time."

"I don't understand."

"That day at the train. Agnes had sent me a kodak picture of Keith and yourself taken on a fishing trip and I recognized you instantly. I had a little prejudice against you to start with, Agnes praised you so preposterously, and then when I saw you looking so bored and superior--oh, I know it was immodest and unwomanly and perfectly horrid, but I just had an intuition of the way you'd gone through life holding women at arm's length, and I made up my mind to give you something to think about."

The confession ended in a half sob. A tear clung for an instant to her curving lashes then fell to her cheek. Forbes leaned closer, murmuring something neither an assurance of forgiveness nor altogether entreaty, but a mixture of both. If it was further food for thought for which he pleaded, he did not ask in vain.

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HOPE

By Edward Thomas Noonan