Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1905-09-18
THE THRESHOLD


glowing drawing room.
Then she came in, and the room
became beautiful, because prettiness
was no+ of her.
They sat together and talked, and
during a little interval the mans
heart logged his elbow in an irritat-
ing way and murmured, "This is the
very last time"
"Yes," said the man aloud, and
she, smiling, asked to what his af-
frmative 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 1
don't know why l am sad-at least
l can't tell you"
"1Iay 1 tell you little story?"
asked she.
please"
Listen, then, but remember my
stories are not personal. There was
once man who never was a 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, continuing, said: at had on
him the effect of tropical sun upon
vegetable life. 1t 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 we're mar
row, but in those limits very intense.
To 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 OF
heard them. He had no time"
- "Ahw
eyes, it was a pity. Well, then
one day by chance he met Fepi0in-
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
dimpled fingers went tripping dainti
ly up and down the keyboard of 6
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
"Why," interrupted he who lis
tened in the drawing room-''why
he had never before known that thi
was the world and how he had bee
led to think that his life was tn
real life of the world"
eyes, that was what he asked hin
self. And so dainty little Femini1
ity, smiling all the while, drew asi6
the lace curtains, which had hidde
from his range of vision the Byzal
tine alley wherein she lived, and h
looking down the alley with her, d
cided that it was the real worlC
that his world so far had been
drearY fantasy of his own creatio
The mans lights were not wide
deep, but very intense, and of cour
he laid his heart, new found, reve
entially and unreservedly at Fer
ininity's feet. Femininity laughin
" accepted the heart, and then
Meeting another man at the co
ner of her alley" said the istene
''threw the heart down, still laugl
ing, and went back to the piano wit
her new friend"
Exactly. Well, now the ma
was in a very sorry plight, becau
he had lost his own world-the sc
created fantasy-and, being forsal
en- in the new world by her to who
his heart had been given, he cou
not find his way. Disillusion bin
ed his eyes with tears, and, gropi1
about in the Byzantine alley, he'-
"He met Frou Frou. You mu
let me tell this piece" said the M
in the drawing room. HE n
Frou Frou, who happened to ha
wandered carelessly from out /
Moorish alley into Femininity's