The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1893-03-16
religion so long as the cooking was ex-


celleut at my club?'
"How furious you arei How must
have irritated you, to make you say
that!'
"Irritated is not precisely the word
should USE" he returned when II
comes to making a race with a woman,
probably am out of it, but that does
not make it any the pleasanter to be
told so. You have been very explicit.
You leave little to my imagination.
think understand you now. OF course
when ! hoped to meet your require
ments was under the impression that
they were reasonable ones. You
always seemed to me supremely rea'
sonable, in spite of your enthusi'
asms."
She lifted an appealing hand, but he
hurried on:
II suppose failed to appreciate che
fact that yonr ideals do not look like
me. A girls ideal is not likely to be a
trifle stout and perceptibly past thirty,
and ] suppose he never has the begin
uing 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-unless
am taking you out" he continued
''Of course these things are serious
offenses against the higher life, es-
pecially the stoutness; and they amply
demonstrate that ! 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 fair to talk like that, =
she said with suppressed agitation. y
try hard to recognize the facts of life
am reasonable being. have not
been dreaming about the hero in a mel
odrama But surely, S omewhere, thorgh
have never known him yet, there's
man who is both strong and fire; a
man who can use the adornmen's of
life without falling their slave, On can
dispense with them and respecthim-
self no less; man who is not ash.med
to have ideals and to strive tward
them. Is humanity SO poor. theL that
! may not hope to find him? End do
you suppose like to tell you that you
are not he? You who come so rear in
most things?"
Outside the swift November twilight
had begun to fall. The light WIS grow
ing faint in the library. Amory turned
the carved paper cutter over aid over
in his strong, soft hands, bedding it
this way and that
IF | were to tell her that lam that
man, what would she say, vonder?"
he thought. ION my soul think that
am not far from being it, Ifmy life is
not blameless in my own e,es, yet it
would hardly be blamewort,y even in
hers. Is it nothing to lave kept
ones hands clean and pne's soul
unstained? Does she think a man
does that without ideals? Does she re-
ally think | am under any serious mis-
apprehensions as to uses oflife? Does
she-0! how hopeless it would be to
try to make her understandr
lie interrupted his own thoughts alb
ruptly, The paper-knife snapped in
his hands, and he dropped the frag-
ments with swift gesture Of his
opened hands, and drew one long
breath. Then he rose, saying with a
new gravity that she had never heard
in his tones before:
80 be 1t You must forgive me IL
seemed trifle bitter. A man does not
lose cheerfully all I am losing-for did
not ask you to marry me to make me
comfortable since you insist on Inv
fondness for comfort, 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 pres
ence. | have only one thing more 10
say. Please remember it. am, I'M
fortunately for my comfort, too old to
change, ! shall not love again. Alb
surd as it may seem-and know YOU
think me quite absurd-l shall not
cease to love you as l love you now.
But as for you, | know your world bet
ter than you know it. You are twenty
two. That is rather young. / am not
young, but can afford to give you ten
years out of my life TO look for that ideal
OF yours, And l shall think the time
well wasted if at the end of it,you can
tell me that no one has ever come near
er it than l. You know you have never
told me that you could not love me,
never once, but only that | did not
come up to that mark. And SO do
not give up"
Her eyes had been fixed on the floor.
Now she lifted up her head, but it had
grown suddenly so dark that he could
only see the motion, not the look she
sent toward him.
us that what you truly think, YOU
truly feel?" she asked at last with a
note in her voice which he never re-
membered to have heard there before.
II stirred his pulses and he wondered
duly what it meant.
He assented silently. The exhilara.
ton with which he had entered the
house, the courage with which he hat
begun the discussion, had all evapor.
ated. He felt tired; he was consciou,
of the night, of the burden of hi,
years and of the deadly soberness OF
life
"Then-thep-I almost thiu, YOU
need not watt"
4 l. l.,