Western liberal. (Lordsburg, N.M.) 1887-1919, 1896-11-06
THE THRESHOLD.

"And this IL the very last time"
muttered the man as the door opened.
1.-THE very last time. " he repeated as
he sat waiting in the pretty, glowing
drawing room.
Then she came in. and the room be-
came beautiful, because prettiness was
not of her.
They sat together and talked, and
during a little interval tho mans heart
legged his elbow in an irritating way
and murmurod, This is the very last
time"
"Yesl" said the man aloud, and she,
smiling. asked to what his affirmative
referred.
Then they talked again on various
subjects which related to the man, for
she knew all his past and something of
his future.
why are you sad today2" she asked
after awhile.
The man hesitated. because . = = l
don't know why 1 am sad; at least l
can't tell you"
MAY 1 toll you a little story?" asked
she.
"Please."
Listen, then, but remember my
stories are not personal. There was once
a man who never was a boy because he
had been unable to spare the time. Be-
ing n boy or even a youth uses up a lot
of time ut the beginning. when time
seems short, and adds it on to the end,
but circumstances and loneliness in
strange places made it impossible for
tho man in my story to invest time in
this way. So he skipped boyhood and
youth and went straight into manhood
in a strange country"
"And what effect IN him did that
have?" asked he in the drawing room,
who had become interested after the
story's first sentence.
She who told the story smiled and,
continuing, said: at had ON him the
effect of tropical sun upon vegetable
life. 1t made him premature in all
ways, but strong also and glorying in
his strength. A great deal was shut out
of his range of vision, and his life's linn
its were narrow, but in those limits
very intense. To him the world was
himself-he and his work, his aims, his
strength. Nothing else, you understand.
Having missed youth, enjoyment did
not come into his scheme. He did not
look about him for life's soft lights and
its music and so never saw or heard
them. He had no time"
"Ahln
Eyes, it was a pity. Well, then one
day, by chance, he met Femininity-
happened upon her. munching cake and
slipping tea. Femininity smiled prettily
at the man and offered him cake and
tea, which he took with nerveless fin
gers, gasping and staring the while in
pleased amazement. Then Femininity's
rosy, dimpled fingers went tripping
daintily up and down the keyboard of a
piano and she sang to him, every note
in her rippling little ballad twanging a
response N one Of the mans heart
strings. And he asked himself . . .
Well, let me see. He asked himself
why" interrupted he who listened
in the drawing room-'why he had
never before known that this was the
world and how he had been led to think
that his life was the real life of the
world"
Eyes. that was what he asked himself.
And so dainty little Femininity, smil-
ing all the while. drew aside the lace
curtains, which had hidden from his
range of vision the Byzantine alley
wherein she lived, and nc, looking down
the alley with her, decided that it was
the real world; that his world 30 far
had been a dreary fantasy of his own
creation. The mans lights were moi
wide or deep, but very intense, and OF
course he laid his heart, new found,
reverentially and unreservedly at Femi.
ninity's feet. Fer ininity laughingly &C
cepted the heart, and en-
Meeting another man at the corner
of her alley" said the listener, ''threw
the heart down. still laughingly, and
went back TO the piano with her new
friend"
Exactly. Well, now the man was in
a very sorry plight, because he had losI
his own world-the self created fan
tasy-and being forsaken in the new
world by her 10 whom his heart hat
been given he could not find his way
Disillusion blinded his eyes with tears
and, cropping about in the Byzantine
alley, he"-
"He met Frou Frou. You must le
me tell this piece" said the man in TIN
drawing room. HE met Frou Frou
who happened TO have wandered care
lessly from out her Moorish alley int
F~emininity's domain. He looked like
man, so Frop FrOp welcomed him will