Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1907-12-22
TINE bachelor apartments of
i Henry Carmichael long

who counted themselves his
friends. 1t was not the unusual
luxury of the rooms, although
there was quite enough of that,
even for a young man with a
carefully invested fortune and no
real responsibilities; but Car
michael had in many ways
strongly impressed upon the place
his own personality. During his
thirty years of life he had trav-
eled far and in many different
directions. and had met many
people. Inherited wealth and
position, to which he had added
geography, had supplied him with
numberless chance acquaintance
and few friends, and long since
he had adopted the excellent
practice never to keep a letter
or destroy photograph.
Thus the story of his life-it so
pleased his young women friends
to believe-was somewhere to be
found carefully framed, and q
more or less carefully auto y
graphed, about the little study
wherein he read the morning
papers and wrote and accepted s.
invitations to dinners. The only -
difficulty was to find the photo
graph among the many, and the II
variety of the subjects and their
constant kaleidoscope change
from ostentatious conspicuous
ness to almost total eclipse added
no little zest to the game. The H4
gallery of feminine beauty COW
cred the walls, interfered with VI 4
the face of the clock on the man :
tel over the fireplace, cramped
his writing desk, and suffocated
the big center table.
There were heavily framed pho
tographs of women in lowered
brocades that looked like mezzo
tints, women who ruled modern
society in New York and London
and Paris: little photographs of
young girls in simple dinner dresses or Sh
skirts and sailor hats who would rule too s
in their mothers places: pictures of womt
Paris stage and the cafe concerts, signed
most sincere expressions of regard and
affection; little and big photographs of ey
of the present day Broadway favorites, fl
fish soubrettes and smiling ingenues to hol
leading women and ponderous dramatic
from the Metropolitan. Mixed with this inc
collection was here and there a picture of
some Englishwoman, who from her sign
one name and her coronet could easily be
as a person of title and the gallery even b
one woman who would some day, if she liz
a real crown.
On this particular Christmas eve ca
the array of Photographic friends, and ther
ing more serious aspect, went into the din
and looked over the carefully arranged ia
knowing eve travelled quickly over the sn'
damask, the thin tall glasses with their
stems, the heavy silver, and the great
American beauties rising above massi,
cup. which he himself had won at golf
smile of content the young man returned o
to the study, lit a cigarette, and waited.
He did not have long to wait; for as
chimed eight Miss Rita Maynard was s.
and Carmichael greeted her with the effu
very old and admiring friend
Am 1 the very frst?" she asked.
Carmichael paid no heed to her quest
took one of her hands in each of his. and, s
them apart looked with undisguised admi
the broad clear brow, the crisp curling
slanting eyes. the pink cheeks with their v
contour, the full rounded throat, and t
shoulders.
Rita, you know he said at last, droI
hands, it isn't right to look like that. /
the other night some place, and thought
you'd hung up an entirely new record for
but-really you know if l looked in my /.