The Denison review. [volume] (Denison, Iowa) 1867-current, 1901-11-15
The Serpent
in Eden ~ ~ ~
BY GwENDoLEN ovERToN
A GREAT deal of unhappiness would


picked out individually as marks fol-
the shafts of the gods-if we would but
adapt ourselves to broader modern
view of life. If for instance, Miss Bah
| blngton had been willing to consider
Terriers case impersonally, in the light
of the triumph of environment over
heredity, both she and Terrier would
probably have been very much better
off-or even had she realized that it
was primarily her own fault, in any
event.
She would have married him and
have gone west with him when he
wanted her to go. He urged as much.
Fate and physicians conspired together
to send him to the jumping-off place;
the least she could do would be to go
along, he said. But Miss Darlington
was cast in the same mold as that
queen who ended upon the guillotine
because she would not fly from France
without her necessaire. She urged the
essentially of a trousseau. Terrier
said things about clothes in general
that only the fact that he was i'll and
not himself could have excused-things
that no woman might hear unmoved.
A final quarrel threatened, but it end
ed in compromise.
Ferrier would go to the Pacific coast,
as he had been bid, and, the trousseau
being completed, Miss Darlington
should take along her mother and it,
and marry him there. 1t would be
| somewhat ,1poopvon+iopo n 1,,,+ r,1s
fornia itself was that, SO no one would
have reason to be shocked. Moreover,
the prospect of separation from Fer
rler for year or so was thing Miss
Babibngton did not like to contem-
plate. She cared for him good deal
more than her insistence upon the
trousseau would lead one not versed in
the workings of the feminine mind to
believe.
She came into the garden and found
Ferrier sitting there. 1t was carna-
ton garden, just sheltered and inland
enough to get none of the freshening
breeze from the sea. The air was warm
and languid and thick with semitic
scent of carnations that spread for
acres upon acres away; of the hello
| trope that hung mass of purple redo
lence above his head; of the honeysuck-
lie that loaded the roof of the green
house near by; of an orange grove in
blossom to Windward somewhere.
There We're humming- birds hanging at
the fower-cups, bluebirds and black
birds drifting about. Terrier watched
them with heavy eyes. The love-tale
he had brought with him lay neglected
upon his knee. He was recollecting po-
etry. He murmured drowsily, half
aloud, of beds of amaranth and moly,"
of warm airs lulling, blowing slowly,
and half-dropped eyelids still.''
And this was, in the nature of things.
the time for Eve toappear. She hoated
into his line of vision by way of the
gravel path. She wore no garments of
leaves, but sky suggestion of cloud
white and faintest blue. She was hat
less, her parasol hung low over her
shoulder, and her brown hair cleaned
in the sun.
Terrier watched her coming toward
him between two rows of La France
rose-bushes in full bloom. He was
sure that she would stop there
where she was and sit beside him
upon the bench. Which was exactly
what she did; but, lest anyone
should suppose that she was not
thoroughly nice girl in every way, be
1T said-it was not by any means the
first time she and Terrier had met.
They had spent mornings together
upon the beach, and afternoons upon
the verandas of the hotel, and their in
tlmacy was just one degree short of
where Terrier thought it necessary to
make her acquainted with any of his
purely personal affairs
Shall l tell you''-said Eve, and her
voice, like the voices of the poem, was
thin and far away-"shall 1 tell YOU
what you were thinking about? You
were thinking that all the ties of the
past are as frail as cobweb strands. are
nothing stronger now than thread of
mist-like that up there" She raised
her eyes to one faint line of cloud that
lay upon the sky.
yes said Terrier, drowsily, as one
who is under spell, "but how does it
happen that you know?"
For answer she turned her ewes to
him. After which that happened
which happened in Heaven once; there
was silence for the space of half an
hour, or rather less, perhaps.
A blackbird, FURNISHED and glowing
till it's wings and breast flashed prism
hues again, lighted among the pink
branches of the oleander-tree. and
preened its'wings and considered them.
a mocking-hird sang from far away in
the heart of the orange grove. Then
Terrier spoke at last. 'Why should it
matter to either of u.s. he said, chat
there has been yesterdays"
Her hand was lying upon the bench.
His own closed gently over it, and she
did not draw away. He drew her closer
to him, SO close that it lay, at length,
against his shoulder, the head with the
glinting brown hair. He looked at the
lps. They were warmly red. and it is
with lips even as with wine there is