Courier Democrat. (Langdon, N.D.) 1891-1920, 1906-08-16

there was not much to be said in his
favor, but she was willing to be
amused.
She had been absent from Antioch
four years. These years had been
spent in the east and in travel abroad
with a widowed and childless sister of
her fathers. She was, on the whole,
glad to be home again. AS yet she was
not disturbed by any thoughts of the
future. She looked on the world With
serene eyes. They were Il limpid blue
and yelled by long dark laslles. She
possessed the poise and mistaken self
confidence that come of position and
experience. Her father and mother
We're not so we'll satisfied with the
situation; they already recognized that
1t held the elements of Il tragedy. In
their desire to give her every oppor'
tunity they had overreachcd them
selves. She had outgrown Antioch as
surely as she had outgrown her child
hood, and it was as impossible to take
her back to the II as to h other.
The doctor patted Oakley on the
shoulder.
II am glad you've dropped in. hope.
now you have made Il beginning, we
shall see more of you"
He was Il portly man of fifty, With
kindly eyes and an easy, gracious man
ner. Mrs. Emory was sedate and
placid. a handsome. we'll kept woman,
who administered her husbands affairs
with a steadiness and economy that
had made it possible for him to amass
a comfortable fortune from his strag-
Cling country practice.
Constance soOn decided that Oakley
was not at all like the young men of
Antioch as she recalled them, nor was
he like the men she had known while
under her aunt's tutelage-the leisurely
idlers who drifted with the social tide,
apparently without responsibility or
care.
He proved hopelessly dense on those
matters with which they had been per-
pleasure and accomplishment, as she
understood them, had found no place
in his life. The practical quality in
his mind showed at every turn Of the
conversation. He appeared to hunger
after hard facts, and the harder these
But he offended in more glaring ways.
He was too intense, and his speech
too careful and precise. as if he We're
uncertain as to his grammar. as. in
deed, he was.
Poor Oakley was vaguely aware that
told. 1t slowly dawned upon him that
he was not her sort, that where he
was concerned she was quite alien.
quite foreign, with interests he could
not comprehend, but which gave him
a ranking II of inferiority.
He had been moderately we'll salts
fed with himself, as, indeed, he had
good reason to be, but her manner was
calculated to rob him of undue pride.
He was not accustomed to being treat
ed with mixed Indifference and patron
age. He asked himself resentfully
how it happened that he had never
before met such a girl. She fascinated
him. The charm of her presence seem
ed to suddenly create and satisfy 4
love for the beautiful. With generous
enthusiasm he set to work to be en-
tertaining. Then a realization of the
awful mental poverty in which he
dwelt burst upon him for the first
time. He longed for some light and
| graceful talent with which to bridge
the wide gaps between the stubborn
heights of his professional erudition.
He was profoundly versed on rates.
grades. ballast, motive power and roll
ing stock, but this solid information
was of no avail. He could on occasion
talk to a swearing section boss with a
grievance and a brogue in a way to
make that mar his friend for life. He
also possessed the happy gift of in
spring his subordinates with a Jealous
sense of duty. but his social RESPONSE
bilities numbed his faculties and left
him a bankrupt for words.
The others gave him no assistance.
Mrs. Emory, smiling and good hurlar-
ed, but silent, bent above her sewing.
She was not an acute person. and the
situation IA lost upon her, while the
doctor took only the most casual part
in the conversation.
Oakley was wondering how he could
make his escape when the doorbell
rang. The doctor slipped from the par
lor. When he returned he was not
alone. He was preceded by a dark
young man of one or two and thirty.
This was Griffith Ryder. the owner of
the Antioch Herald.
"My dear" said he, "Mr. Ryder"
Ryder shook hands With the two ladies
and nodded carelessly to Oakley. Then,
with an easy, careless compliment. be
lounged down in the chair at Miss
Emory's side.
Constance had turned from the
strenuous Oakley to the newcomer
with a sense of unmistakable relief
Her mother. too. frightened visibly.
She did not entirely approve of Ryder,
II be was always entertaining in a
law in1iffapppt foch;n, 20 ~.