The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1900-02-08
"HOW." ;"

THERE are a number of ways n
which you can test a woman's
beauty and prove that it is vain. You
can see her after she has danced until
dawn and drives home in the cold, blue
light. You can drop in upon her when
her neglige is such in reality, and not
a matter of rutfles and lace. You can
see her rise dripping from the surf. no
daughter of foam and fire, but crea
ture of dank locks and purple lips. Or
you can look at her after she has gone
twice round the links in the blazing sun
and the dust fraught wind. All these
are likely to convince you of the de-
ceitfulness of beauty. But some wom-
en- are so fair as to bear each and all of
these tests. Yet if you were to put
them in a smoky, close sleeping car,
anywhere between, say, Tucson and
Yuma, at the middle of an August day,
they might then become, as every one
else, SO ugly that it would increase
your ugliness and bad temper to be
forced to look at them. When wom-
an under these last conditions is still
pleasant to contemplate you may set ii
down that her charms are real and en-
during.
Harrington did so in the case of the
girl in Section 2. He was in Section 6
himself, and her back was turned to
him; but she faced the bevelled mirror,
SO considerably built in the end of the
ear, and he sat SO that he could watch
her reflected in it. Besides which he
could see her back hair, which was
brown and looked soft, and which es-
capped in wisps that curled up tighter
and tighter as the day grew hotter and
hotter. Harrington thought about
French novel he had once read, whose
heroine had "boucles folles qui fris-
salient autour de sa nuque." He had
always liked that idea, but had never
seen it realized until now.
There were only four people in the
Pullman-a man and woman who
were not interesting, Harrington and
the girl. Harrington entered the train
at Ell Paso. The girl was there already.
The only mark on her traps was sill
yer tag strapped to her satchel, and
Harrington had not been able to get
within reading distance of it. He had
tried hard enough. Neither had he
been able to screw up his courage to the
point of questioning the conductor.
He did not believe in discussing women
with the first conner. So he put his feet
up on the opposite seat and leaned back
and watched the boucles folles. and
noted how prettily her skin flushed, and
what nice shadow her lashes made on
her cheeks. Life would have been
far pleasanter thing if he could have
talked to her.
The prospect beyond the cinder
guard was so monotonous. That of
course, is putting it very much more
mildly than Harrington did. ben
Bolt" began to run in his head; which
is bad enough in itself, but when it
times itself to the te-rumpety-rump,t te-
rumpety-rump, 'e-rumpety-rump of
the wheels, is enough to drive n sober
man to drink. The only reason Har-
rington did not drink now was because
he had already had one bottle Of beer.
and he was afraid of the opinion of the
girl. Besides, it flushed his face. And
trembled with tears at
your froWn'
the wheels were turning more slow
ly. There was that ugly hush of un-
certainty, OF interruption in the nat
ural sequence of things that falls when
train slows down in the midst OF the
prairie. The sensation Of dying must
be rather like il. The train stopped
and the airbrake hissed. Then all was
silence that let you hear the blood
running in your veins, until there was
the crunch of footsteps on the cinders
beside the track.
Harrington put up his window and