Smyrna times. [volume] (Smyrna, Del.) 1854-1987, 1904-03-09
FACE IN
THE
G r O w D
BY Keith Gordon
Copyrights. 19Os, bv I. C. Mcclure


Fifty-third street station in the morn
iQg-the tall, broad shouldered man
with the aggressive chin and deter
mined mouth. She felt vaguely dis
appointed when she did not see him.
Insensibly he became the touch of
romance in the dreary monotony of
her days, FIVE and half out of seven
of which were spent in Wall street, a
place where the advantages of being
a woman are not glaringly apparent.
Often during the tagging afternoons
Of summer, when business was dull
and the hands of the clock approach
ed 3 but slowly, she would sit resting
her face on her hands and wondering
abort him. Who was he? What was
he? Was he married or single?
The noise of the street blow, dulled
by distance until it was as dreamy as
the humming of bees at MONDAY,
drOned softly in her ears a sort of liv-
ing melody, and her thoughts defied
Office hours and went far afield in
him among the crowd of possibilities.
Over and over she gave him q local
habitatiOn and a name, but these
changed always with her mood. No
name that she could hit upon seemed
to express his personality, and she
finally discarded them all and thought
of him only as The Man.
Io int Int
her interest in him did not flag. Rath-
er it became deeper as time went on.
Curiously enough, it was what might
be termed the nonessentials that baf-
fed her. About the man himself-his
character and what he would do in
any given emergency = she felt the
same assurance that she did about her
self.
She had decided that he was a law
yer, though precisely why she thought
so she could not have told. Then one
day she saw him with a child, girl
OF ten, who bore a certain fleeing re-
semblance to him.
He was married, then! An almost
imperceptible sigh escaped her. Then,
as the absurdity Of the matter dawned
upon her, she laughed softly to her
self. What difference? Josephine and
Marie Louise had never dampened her
affection for Napoleon. She even be-
gan to feel mild interest in the lady.
Sometimes, for two or three weeks
at a stretch, they would not encounter
each other. 1t was after one Of these
breaks that, watching him as he en-
tered the car, her interest and salts
faction at seeing him again shOne all
unconsciously in her face, and his
glance was arrested by it.
As the faint color touched her cheeks
under his gaze he looked casually
away. For a moment he had thought
her some half forgotten acquaintance
from the welcome that he had sur
prised in her eyes, but her quick an
noyance as she returned to her reading
forbade that idea.
She did not look toward him again,
but more than once his keen, blue eyes
rested upon her as she sat there, slim
and straight, with masses of pale
brown hair piled upon her small head
After this he, too, began to watch of g
morning. A habit is very easily form
ed!
Then for weeks he disappeared. The
girl wondered anXiously what had be
come Of him. Had he gone abroad
Mayhap he was ill-or dead! At th'
thought she shrank like one hurt, fol
he had become, in a whimsical way
a part Of her life. lie had become al
near and dear as only ideals can be.
When he did appear one morning
towering above a crowd Of lesser mel
like a god, there was new gravity il
his face which held her attention ever
before she noticed that he was il
mourning.
That, then, was what these week
Of absence from business meant Sick
ness and suffering and death. Hi
wife undoubtedly, from the sorrow ant
oppression that he showed. The quicl
sympathy that she felt lowered in he
soft, wide eyes as they rested brief.
upon his face. And he, reading tina
look, felt a curious thrill.
Long since he had begun to regar
her with a sort of tacit, silent friend
ship. 1.-THE little girl with her soul i
her face" as he once described her to
friend, shaking his head deprecatingl
at the thought of a woman like he
having to wrestle with the world. Sh
seemed to him too exquisite for tb
ups and downs of such life.
He watched her surreptitiously now
wondering idly who she was an
whether he should ever meet he
There was a wayne might follow he
and bestow a quarter on the elevate
boy, and the thing would be done. Br
the coarseness of such methods y
PEELED him. She seemed the sort of
woman who would resent that kind
thing.
Moreover, in his heart of hearts an
in spite of his bigness and worldlines
he was a fatalist. If it were write
from the beginning 1t would occu
No man could dabble in the affairs {
fate!
II moe v,ao,-3oc. +ho opd % tho fbi,