The Minneapolis journal. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn.) 1888-1939, 1903-05-09

where sleepy COOKS and bartenderS would
have to be routed out to collaborate to-
ward breakfast.
oftener the party fell away into
struggling groups with notions for sleep.
chanting at last, perhaps
While beer brings glainess, don't forget
That water only makes you wet.
E Percival would walk to the hotel,
sobered and perhaps made little reject
i've by the unwonted quiet. But they
were pleasant. careless folk, he concluded
always. They permitted him to spend
his money, but he was quite sure they
would spend 1t as freely as he II they
had it. More than one appreciative SOU
brette. met under such circumstances
was subsequently enabled to laud the
sureness of his taste in jewels,--he cared
little for anything but large diamonds
1t transpired.
Under this more or less happy surface of
diversion, however, was an experience
decidedly less felicitous He knew he
should not. must not, hold Avice Milbrey
In his mind: yet when he tried to put her
out it hurt him.
At first he had plumed himself upon his
lucky escape that night, when he would
have declared his love to her To have
married a girl who cared only for his
money: that would have been dire enough.
But to marry girl like that! He had
been lucky indeed!
Yet as the weeks went by the shock of
! SOSAAS
manned clear, with the grinning gro
tesquerie of the Jack o'lanterns lighting
it and knocking his simplicity. But the
first sharp physical hurt had healed. He
was forced to admit that the girl still had
power to trouble him. At times. his
device than the picturing Of her as his
own. Exactly In the meas sure that he in
dulged this would his pride smart With
budding gift for negation he could
imagine her caring for nothing but his
money; and there was that other picture,
swift and awful, pantomime in shadow,
with the leering yellow faces above it..
In the Tar night, when he awoke to
sudden and hungry aloneness he would let
his arms feel their hunger for her The
vision OF her would be flowers and music
and sunlight and time and all things per-
fect to mystify and delight, to satisfy and
greatest OF all boons-to unsatis-
fy. The thought Of her became 4,
rest house for all weariness: =
haven where he was free to choose his
nook and lie down away from all that
was not her, which was all that was not
Deantl1ul. he would go back to seek the
lost sweetness of their first meeting; to
mount the poor dead belief that she would
care for him-that he could make her care
Tor hlm-and endow the thing with ar
tificial life. trying to capture the faint
breath OF it; but the memory was always
AASSkAhS, dSLCludISus ike the Spirit OF H
the memory of a perfume that had been
elusive at best. And always, to Danish
what JOY even this poor device might
bring, came the more vivid vision of the
brutal, sordid facts. He forced himself
to face them regularly as penance and a
corrective.
They came before him 1ith especial
clearness when he met her from time to
time during the winter He watched
her in talk with others, noting the con-
tradiction in her that she would at one
moment appear knowing and masterful,
with depths Of reserve that the other PEG
pie neither fathomed nor knew Of: and
at another moment frankly girlish, with
an appealing feminine helplessness which
is womans greatest strength, coercing
every strong masculine instinct.
When the reserve showed in her he
became afraid. What was she not capable
OF? In the other mood, frankly appealing,
she drew him nightly, so that he aban-
doned himself for the moment respond
Ing to her fresh exulting youth, longing
to take her, to give her things, to make
her laugh, to enfold and protect her. to
tell her secrets, to feather her cheek with
the, softest kiss, to be the child mate of
her.
Toward him, directly, when thew met
she would sometimes be glacial and for
bidding, sometimes uninterestedly frank
as IT they were but the best of common
place friends. Yet sometimes she made
him feel that she, too, threw herself heart
lily to rest in the thought of their loving,
and cheated herself, as he did. with
dreams of comradeship. She left him at
these times with the feeling that they
were deaf, dumb and blind to each other;
that II some means Of communication
could be devised, something surer than
the Invisible play Of secret lonsings, all
might yet be well. They talked as the
people about them talked, words that
meant nothing to either, and if there were
mute questionings, naked appeals, unut-
tered declarations, they were only such
as language serves to. divert attention
from. Speech, doubtless, has it's uses as
well as its abuses. Politics, for example,
would be less entertaining without it.
But in matters OF the heart. certain it
is that there would be fewer misunder-
standings If it were forbidden between
the couple under the penalty of imme-
date separation. In this affair real mean
ings are rarely conveyed except by ST.
fences. Words are not more than taste
less drapery to obscure their lines. The
silence Of lovers IS the. plainest Of all
speech, warning, disconcerting indeed, by
It's very bluntness,s any but the truly
mated. An hours silence with these two
people by themselves might have worked
wonders.
Another diversion. Of Pefcivars during
this somewhat feverish winter was Mrs.
Akemit. Not only was she woman of
finished and expert daintiness in dress
and manner and surroundings but she
soothed, fattereS and stimulated him.
With the wisdom OF her thirty-two years,
devoted chiefly to study of his species,
she took care never to be exigent. She
had the way Of referring to herself as
poor little me- yet she never made de-
mands or allowed him to feel that she ex-
pected anything from him in the way of
allegiance. 81
Go be continued Monday