The San Juan islander. [volume] (Friday Harbor, Wash.) 1898-1914, 1905-07-15
THE THRESHOLD

01dWIug room.
Then she came in, and the room
became beautiful, because prettiness
was not Of her.
They sat together and talked and
uurlng little interval the mans
heart logged his elbow in an irritat-
ing way and murmured, ssThis is the
very last time :
es, said the man aloud and
she, smiling, asked to what his af-
firmative referred.
Then they talked again on various
SUBJECTS which related to the man.
for she knew all his past and some,
thing of his future.
why are you sad today?" she
asked after awhile.
The man hesitated. Because I
don't know why am sad-at least
| can't tell you.'
''May tell you a little story ?o
asked she.
please"
"Listen, then, but remember nv
stories are not personal. There was
once man who never was boy be-
cause he had been unable to spare
the time. Being a boy or even a
youth uses up a lot of time at the
beginning, when time seems short,
and adds it on to the end, but cir
cumstances and loneliness in strange
places made it impossible for the
man in my story to invest time in
this way. So he skipped boyhood
and youth and went straight into
manhood in a strange country
'And what effect on him did that
have? ?" asked he in the drawing
room, who had become interested
after the story's first sentence.
She who told the story smiled
and, contir uing, said: cit had on
him the effect of tropical sun upon
vegetable life. It made him prema-
ture in all ways, but strong also and
glorying in his strength. A great
deal was shut out of his range of
vision, and his life's limits were mar
row, but in those limits very intense.
70 him the world was himself-he
and his work, his aims, his strength.
Nothing else, you understand. Hav-
ing missed youth, enjoyment did not
come into his scheme. He did not
look about him for life's soft lights
and its music and so never saw or
/ heard them. He had no time"
"Ahw
eyes, it was a pity. Well, then
one day by chance he met Feminin-
ity-happened upon her munching
cake and slipping tea. Femininity
smiled prettily at the man and Of
fered him cake and tea, which he
took with nerveless fingers, gasping
and staring the while in pleased
amazement. Then Femininity's rosy,
aimpled fingers went tripping dainti-
ly up and down the keyboard OF a
piano, and she sang to him, every
note in her ripping little ballad
twanging a response on one OF the
mans heartstrings. And he asked
himself well, let me see, he asked
himself
s.Why," interrupted he who lis
tened in the drawing room-''why,
he had never before known that this
was the world and how he had been
led to think that his life was the
real life of the world"
eyes, that was what he asked him
self. And so dainty little Feminin-
ity, smiling all the while, drew aside
the lace curtains, which had hidden
from his range of vision the Byzan-
tine alley wherein she lived, and he,
looking down the alley with her, de-
cided that it was the real world
that his world so far had been a
dreary fantasy Of his own creation.
The mans lights were not WIDE OF
deep, but very intense, and OF course
| he laid his heart, new found, rever-
entially and unreservedly at Fem
ininity's feet. Femininity laughing
ly accepted the heart, and them
ssMeeting another man at the cor
ner of her alley" said the listener,
"threw the heart down, still laugh
! ing. and went back to the piano with
her new friend"
Exactly. Well, now the man
was in a very sorry plight, because
| he had lost his own world-the sell
created fantasy-and, being forsak-
en- in the new world by her to whom
his heart had been given, he could
not find his way. Disillusion blind
ed his eyes with tears, and, gropne
about in the Byzantine alley, he
"He met Frou Frou. You must
let me tell this piece" said the man
!. in the drawing room. He met
Ffou Frou, who happened to nave
8 wandered carelessly from out mel
. Moorish alley into Femininitys 90.
= - 1sIo man ar