The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1897-07-03
THE MIXING OF A NAN.
by owHNDohEn ovERror.


thing to do. Another good rule is tn;
II woman is not ignorant of life, sl
had better have learned it from life an
not from books.
Olive Torrey was clever and had notf
ing to do. She lived at frontier pos
ind could go in neither for charity nc
clubs nor fads. She had a husband VIII
studied, and no children, so there wa
nothing for her in her home. She ha
come straight from a southern Cal
fornia town-and there is less of lif
to be seen there in a given period O
years than in any other spot on earth
But she read-largely Balzac an
Thackeray and Crawford and Bourget
which taught helka great deal that sh
had no need to know. She dreame,
dreams Of love at first, while she was
bride; but they were not very realisti
dreams. She had to idealize her hus
band vigorously to make them endur,
even year; and no ore can idealiz
q husband successfully. He is too much
on hand; more especially in four
company post.
She was o good woman-therefore
when she failed on the husband it die
not even occur to her to try on some ons
else, though there were two promising
bachelors. Instead, she went at the
novels of manners again, and with new
devotion, and dwelt Oh the parts that
dealt with intrigue and ambition and
success In the world, and SKINNED over
the love parts. She did not believe in
them much now. So her mind became
filed with this sort of thing, and there
was no vent for it. She wanted to be a
brilliant, disilIusioned young matron,
courted by diplomats, power in salons
which ambitions were just a bit Diff
cult OF realization where she was,
Lieut.. Torrey would not be worked
up to her pitch. He read war records
and interior department reports, and
thought great thoughts about Indians,
and would have made himself a nuisance
to the people at Washington, If they had
not become used to that sort of thing
and thick-skiDned long ago. He was
an unpleasant kind of man, and SOL
der neither in appearance nor by in
stincts nor in actions. He was TO the
service what the man who signs his let
tiers "A Citizen" is to a local newspaper.
He was always making petty objections
to and complaints against what's. And
what is should be bowed down to and
silently worshiped by good officer. In
short. he was not at all the sort of
man for his wife, and she did not need
10 be as clever as she naturally was
to find this out.
At four-and-twenty she thought she
was old and experienced, and quite
capable of handling any sort of sharp
edged tools. Although she never posed
IS unhappy, or thought herself partic-
ularly so. the idea came to her that she
would like to have the making of a man,
10 be the Egeria to some Numa. just
what she would make him she had not
determined. She would have to have
he man first. She got him. He came
straight out from West Point, and he
vas hopeless-impossible.
Joe, don't you think young Gordon
8 promising?" she asked her husband. !
Gordon had come the day before.
Promising to be about like all the
'thers." There was infinite contempt in |
hat "all the others"-men with no
IDEAS.
Il don't know. 1t seems to me he has |
clever face, the face of man--that
), man of the world, in embryo"
She was trying to see him in the light
4 her own imaginings. 1t is quite hu-
nan and very feminine to persist in
rying to itfealize those about one, and
My great many dismal failures sue
eed in curing one.of the habit.
at struck me that he had the face of
boy from West Point"
His wife's good nature was unflag-
ing. "Now-yes. But he could be
,ade something Of"
IA major, If he lives"
Mrs. Torrcy was silenced, but not
aunted.
Mrs. Torrey continued to think that
horne Gordon was good material toi
'ork with. She liked his name. It
hacked OF the statesman. She called
Is face impressionable, when it was
ist weak. She saw secrecy in his eyes
which were shifting. She discovered
aston in his specch-which was trivial. !
physically. he did fairly well. He was
ii and slender in distinguished sort
way. There was no cause for the dis
notion; it was neither in himself nor
herited. If there had been any girls
the post, he would have fallen in love d
I'd married, and then Mrs. Torrey
'uldn't have done anything with him. ]
1t was, he came to her naturally. No s
'dy else wanted him. She set to work
: giving him her books to read. He 4
lew enough West Point French to '
can all the harm there is in Balzac
I'd Bourget. When Mrs. Torrey talked I
e us therein portrayed. he talked love '
they showed it forth.