The Virginia enterprise. [volume] (Virginia, St. Louis County, Minn.) 1893-19??, 1902-06-06
HIS EXPERIMENT.


snapped like torpedo. Gray blinked
down on her thoughtfully, but there was
a hint OF amusement in the twist of his
mouth.
NO, thank you," he corrected, with
gentle gravity.
Babetre bit her lips in helpless, 81
lent anger. She felt that she had APP
peared like a ruffled canary before whose
bars he had passed a teasing finger, and
her vanity was on fire, scorching her
intolerab]y.
He had asked her gravely and with
out worship. to marry him, and she, hail
ing a chance to be revengeful for a
thousand tiny wounds, had drawn her.
self up like novel heroine, with lips
and eyes following the printed directions
of romance, and had refused him with
chilly hauteur.
Gray's glance, keen, quiet, not ador-
ing, had shattered the soap bubble glory
of the moment, and reduced her from a
queen OF fiction to a petulant little girl
caught in the act of posing. He could
have sootled her in second by a touch
Of ardor, hint of pleading; but he only
argued little, in grave, reasonable fash
ion, and asked her if she would not bet
ter reconsider her answer. She quivered
under her anger, and the knowledge that
it was small and petty doubled the ex-
ASPIRATION. Her moi" stood for what,
in lower civilization, would have been
a blow.
with an inward tumult that showed it,
self in proud rigidity; he outwardly i'm
passive, though the hooking look had left
his face.
'Well, I have failed,' he began slow
~. perhaps it was my fault. perhaps
yours; or it may be that the thing itself
is IMPOSSIBLE
Babette did not betray flicker of in
terest, but he went on:
II think could have made you fail in
love with my love of you, but I vowed I
wouldn't. l wanted you to care for MI.
myself, as a man, or not at all. l want
ed you to like me first and then love me
She started to speak, then checked her
self, and began working i nervous finger
into a ting hole in the silk pillow she
leaned on.
I'm not man who can spend his life
on his knees, ministerng to a woman's
love. of admiration. If I had won you
in that attitude, you would have been
NAL position. You would have loved the
posture, not the man himself. l wanted
our relation to be an honest one from the
start. l thought you were Broad enough
to appreciate it. Sincerity is higher
compliment than alteration, Babette''
1ou don't love me-not in the least
she broke out. you're cold and critical,
and-oh, - She stopped abruptly.
Yes, you hate me-" he said, little
bitterly: IF it were for what l am, l
shouldn't have word to say. But it is
Just for my attitude toward you-that is
mime vanityv'
Babette's self-control was in tatters
but she drew it desperately around her
His face changed as he looked at her
and he came and stood beside her chair
My dearest girl, know I've hurt
you 70! brutally thousand times,' he said;
but you have hurt me more. I did
want you to understand the real value
Of things, to prove yourself above the
little personal standpoint that most girls
take. And vet, all the time'-he bent
down till his forehead almost touched
her hair-"I wanted to go down OH my
knees just like any other fool!'
= = * X
1t was nearly two years before Ba-
bette saw Gray again. Change and
chance took him completely away from
her outer life. Then one night she found
herself trembling with the knowledge
that she was not two feet from him, in
the crowded audience of all amateur
play. He was directly in front of her,
chair and talking to Mrs. Collier. pref
ty, affected little widow, delicately fem
mime.
ITS just my gown" she was saying
''Isn't it a triumph? Why, if you saw
it on wax lady in shop window, your
pulse. would act i'll exactly the same
way"
"But you didn't have it on last night
he argued. The chairs We're so close to-
gether that Babette could hear every
word. Nor the night before, nor every
time We seen you. Besides, l never
have time to look at your gowns. You
send me away before I'm half through
THE curtain is going up" interposed
Mrs. Collier.
''Do l have to look at the stage?" he
asked, in forlorn whisper.
Babette, under pretense of a draft,
changed her seat, and fixed her eyes on
thing was going on there. When, later,
Gray recognized her and came across to
shake hands, she met him with frank
cordially.
1T is good of you to speak to me at
all he said, dropping, down beside her.
Her eyes questioned him.
''Surely you haven't forgotten how
took it Oh myself to read you a lecture
back in our buried past?" he explained.
Il wake up and blush over it in the
night even yet. l was very rude and
very priggish, remember. What SOL
emn chump you must have thought me!'
ut was about being broad-minded,"
said Babette slowly; "about seeing things
as they really were, and not just as they
affected one personally"
"I'm afraid 49," he admitted. II made
war on women in general and you in
particular, and wanted you to give up
all Your most adorable traits. Wasn't
green?'
''What if had taken you seriously,
had gone to work and made myself over
to fit your standards?' she asked, with a
laugh.
"Then I suppose I'd have been to
blame for the spelling OF very charm
ing person." he answered. "I'm 80 glad
you didn't. It's your blessed little femi-
ninities that make you what you are"
''What are we?" Her voice vas heavy
with something ne did not try to under
stand.
"a thing to be braided and jeweled
and kissed.'" he laughed ''The one re-
deem1in9g feature of an ugly, stupid
.'What has changed you 500" she
asked. Her face was smiling, but she
kept her eyes from him.
"Oh, time, and common sense, and ex-
perience, suppose, and" His voice
l. y