Audubon Republican. [volume] (Audubon, Iowa) 1894-1925, 1906-09-13
THE
| SPENDERS |
A Tale of the Third Generation
By HARRY LEON WILSON
- 2 9!
Copyright, by Lothrop Publishing Company.
CHAPTER XII.-CoNTINUED.

CHAPTER XII.-CoNTINUED.
In the far night, when he awoke to
sudden and hungry aloneness, he would
let his arms feel their hunger for her.
The vision of her would be flowers and
music and sunlight and time and all
things perfect to mystify and delight,
to satisfy and-greatest of all boons--
TO unsatisfy. The thought of her be-
came a rest house for all WEAKNESS; a
haven where he was free to choose his
nook and lie down away from all that
was not her, which was all that was
not beautiful. He would go back to
seek the lost sweetness Of their first
meeting; to mount the poor dead belief
that she would care for him-that he
sould make her care for him-and en-
low the thing with artificial life, try
ing to capture the faint breath Of it;
out the memory was always fieeting,
tttenuated, like the spirit Of the men,
Dry of perfume that had been elusive
It best And always, to Danish what
10y even this poor device might bring,
tame the more vivid vision Of the
brutal, sordid facts. He forced himself
10 face them regularly as a penance
and a corrective.
They came before him with especial
clearness when he met sher from time
10 time during the winter. He watched
her in talk with others, noting the con-
tradiction in her that she would at
One moment appear knowing and mas
lerful, with depths of reserve that the
sther people neither fathomed nor
knew Of; and at another moment frank
" girlish, with an appealing feminine
lelplessness which is wOman's great
!st strength, coercing every strong
masculine instinct.
When the reserve showed in her, he
Iecame afraid. What was she not
capable Of? In the other mood, frank
y appealing, she drew him nightly,
10 that he abandoned himself for the
moment, responding to her fresh ex-
alting youth, longing to take her, to
give her things, to make her laugh, to
InfOld and protect her, to tell her Sc
trets, to feather her cheek with the
IOftest kiss, to be the child-mate of her.
Toward him, directly, when they met
she would sometimes be glacial and
tOrbidding sometimes uninterestedly
frank, as if they were but the best of
commonplace friends. Yet sometimes
she made him feel that she, too, threw
herself heartily 10 rest in the thought
of their loving, and cheated herself, as
he did, with dreams of comradeship.
She left him at these times with the
feeling that they were deaf, dumb and
blind to each other; that if some means
Of communication could be devised
something surer than the invisible
play of secret longings, all might yet
be we'll. They talked as the people
about them talked, words that mean
nothing to either, and If there were
mute questionings, naked appeals, un
uttered declarations, they were only
such as language serves to divert at
IGNITION from. Speech, doubtless, ha!
It's uses as well as its abuses. Politics
for example, would be less entertain
ing without it. But in matters of thu
heart, certain it is that there would b.
fewer misunderstanding if it wer
forbidden between the couple unde
the penalty of immediate separation
In this affair real meanings are rarel
conveyed except by silences. Word
are not more than tasteless drapery t
obscure their lines. The silence Q
lovers is the plainest of all speech
warning, disconcerting indeed, by 1t
very bluntness, any but the trul
mated. An hours silence with thes
TWO people by themselves might hay
worked wonders