Waterbury evening Democrat., 1903-12-04

light little laugh. why you wrote to me so seldom, Tom.
 T was a selfish beggar and I've never asked you, Gwen, how you've been get ting on. splendidly, as usual, ot course?"
 She smiled little bitterly.
 eff you choose to call it that" she said. T can always get plenty of work. "
 And you deserve it."
 ''Such as it is."
 'sOh, come now, Gwen, you. a success full journalist, oughtn't to talk like this. Why, thousands of women would give anything for your position
 "I daresay" l.
 "But not many of them have got your brains or your enterprise"
 Don't you think so?"
 "I always said you were bound to suc- ceed, Gwen, when I watched how you stood up against all odds, how you smiled at rebuffs that would have made other women weep, how you bearded the editors in their dens and calmly told them that your stuff was what they wanted, and how, when they declined your manuscripts time after time, you only laughed and declared that your hour would come some day-do you re- member, Gwen?"
 "Yes, remember" she said, wearily.
 HAnd your hour has come!"
 -"Yes, got what wanted. Tom" "
 ''I knew you would You are so cool and plucky and unmoved, Gwen. Some times I feel almost afraid of you" k "Afraid-of me? > She stared at him. with wide eyes full of pain.
 Almost afraid" he said. You are so different from other women. Some times. Gwen, you are almost unnatural, you seem so proud and strong and in dependent. sI
 If he only knew" she whispered to herself, and in that moment she real ized the vast gulf that stretched between her and this man who understood her so little.
 Forgive me if send you away now 7 she said, presently. II have story to finish. for the Epoch tonight, and it's weighing on my mind"
 weighing on your mind!" he ex- claimed T don't believe you allow anything to weigh on your mind, Gwen. "
 Don't you?" she asked. lstlessly. How little he understood!
 The editor of the Epoch had rejected her last contribution. with a curt note to the effect that the story was scarcely up to her usual mark.
 No one but Gwen herself knew how she winced beneath that criticism, as beneath every rebuff of the same sort.
 To her editors and colleagues, Gwen seemed case-hardened journalist who pocketed snubs cheerfully, as a matter of course, and showed commendable appreciation of her own ability
 They little guessed what agonIes of doubt and self-distrust the girl endured at every business interview, at every post that brought back rejected manu- script: what bitter tears she shed in secret; how, at times, she would cry out in her loneliness and feel afraid desperately, hopelessly afraid of the struggle that lay before her. the sordid, miserable struggle for mere bread-and- cheese that had been her lot almost ever since she could remember.
 The success that had fallen to her share had cheered her, but 1t did not suffice to set at rest the terrible doubt of herself and her powers that torment ed her so persistently.
 Sometimes, at the end of a more than usually hard spell of work, her over taxed brain would suddenly refuse to respond further to her call upon 1t, and then an awful fear would seize her. the fear that she had come to the end of her resources, that her stock-in-trade of ideas had been exhausted, that she had, in fact, written herself out" :l
 At such times she would sit at her desk for hours, wild-eyed and white faced, unable to pen single line, won- dering desperately what the end of it all would be.
 And then, all at once, in the midst oi her misery, thought would come to her, bringing light to her tired eyes, and flush to her cheeks, that seemed to transfgure the anxious face and make it strangely beautiful s
 She was not altogether friendless. He had told her, again and again, In his boyish, impulsive fashion, that he ad- mired her more than any other woman In the world; and, though she smiled al his .extravagance, 1t was infinitely soothing to her,
 He had never pretended to be in love with her. Indeed, he had hurt her often enough by his thoughtless, outspoken comments upon his own and other mems attitudes towards her.
 But-there had been no other woman.
 Perhaps, some day-who could tell a-- he might-he might-Gwen never got beyond this point. She was proud; she tried to be proud, even to herself
 It/was pride that made her smile her