News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1893-04-27
I'm short-why don't you sum me

tlons OF religion so long as the cook
ing was excellent at my club"
How furious you are. How
must have irritated you to make you
say that"
" lrritated is not precisely the word
| should use," he returned. "When
it comes to making a race with the
ideals of young and imaginative
woman, probably am out of it, but
that does not make it any pleasanter
to be told so. You have been very
explicit. 1Cu leave little to my imag-
inatiOn. OfcOurse when | hoped to
meet your requirements | was under
theimpressiOn that they were reason
able ones. You always seemed to me
supremely reasonable, in spite of
your enthusiasms."
She lifted an appealing hand, but
he hurried on:
81 suppose | failed to appreciate
the fact that your ideal looks like me.
A girls ideal is not likely to be a trife
stout and preceptibly past thirty,
and | suppose he never has the begin
ming of bald spot on his head?"
She disdained to answer
"And at dinner he probably cares
more about whom he takes out than
what is set before him. | admit that
it is no longer the case with me-un-
less | am taking you out" he con-
tinued. ''Of course these things are
serious offences against the higher
life, especially the stoutness and they
amply demonstrate that l am of the
earth. earthly. | am glad it is proved
to your satisfaction, for otherwise
there have been moments when have
been so fatuous as to think that you
might after all find it hard to throw
me over completely"
at is hardly tair to talk like that"
she said with suppressed agitation.
81 try hard to recognize the facts of
life. | am a reasonable being. |
have not9been dreaming about the
hero of a melodrama. But surely
some where, though l have never
known him yet, there is a man who
is both strong and fine; a man who
can use the adornments of life with
out falling their slave, or can dispense
with them and respect himself no
less; a man who is not ashamed to
have ideals and to strive toward
them. Is humanity so poor, then,
that l may not hope to find him?
And do you suppose like to tell you
that you are not he? You who come
so near in most things?"
Outside, the swift November twi-
light was falling Light was growing
faint in the library. Amory turned
the carved paper-cutter over and over
in his strong, soft hands, bending it
this way and that.
eff were to tell her that | am that
man, what would she say, | wonder"
he thought. "On my soul | think l
am not far from being it. If my life
is not blameless in my own eyes, yet
it would hardly be blameworthy even
in hers. Is it nothing to have kept
ones hands clean and ones soul un-
stained? Does she really think am
under any serious misapprehensions
as to the uses of life? Does she-O
Lord! How hopeless It would be TO
try to make her understand"
He interrupted his own thoughts
abruptly. The paper-knife snapped
in his hands and he dropped the frag-
ments with a swift gesture of his
opened hands, and drew one long
breath. Then he rose, saying with a
new gravity that she had never yet
heard in his tones before:
$50 be it. You must forgive me if
L seemed trifie better. A man does
not lose cheerfully all l am losing
for did not ask you to marry me to
make me comfortable, but because it
was my one chance for happiness.
Such happiness and such stimulus
as you are still young enough to get
from many things find only in your
presence. L have one thing more to
say. Please remember it. | am un-
fortunately for my comfort, too old
to change. | shall not love again.
shall not even cease to love you as
| do now. But as for you. know
your world better than you know it.
You are TWENTY-FIVE. That is rather
young, but | can afford to give you
ten years out of my life to look for
that ideal of yours. And shall think
the time well wasted if at the end of
it you can tell me that no one has
ever come nearer it than myself
You know you have never told me
that you could not love me, but that
[ did not come up to that mark. So
| do not give you up"
Her eyes had been fixed on the
floor Now she lifted her head, but
it had grown so dark that he could
only see the motion, not the look she
sent toward him.
lis that what you truly feel?" she
asked at last will note in her voice
which he never remembered to have
heard there before. 1t stirred his |
pulses and he wondered what it |
meant.
He assented silently. The exhilara-
tion with which he had entered the |
house, the courage with whichhe had |
begun the discussion, had all evapO-
rated. He felt tired; he was consci-
Gus of the night, of the burden OF his
years and the deadly soberness of
life.
"Then-then-I almost think you
need not wait"
"Eleanor, do you know what you
are saying?"
She turned her head and faced the
gathering darkness.
"How can he be so stupid as to
ask me that?' she demanded of the
twilight. "Is it going to
take him ten years to understand. -
Kate Fields Washington.