The Richmond palladium. (Richmond, Ind.) 1906-1907, 1907-03-03

element the Snowy outside life of theatre restaurant
1t public restaurant that he had first
met her, five dinner at Sherrys, where he
had first listened those munous red lips first been
dazzled by the coppery CLINT of her hair first looked
into those wide gray eyes and answered their appeal
he had realized that the time-ust tall, slim
thing with face that robbed him of his sleep. He
could smile now, grimly, remembering how he had
fought against the piquant spell of her precocity her
nascent grace Of womanhood It was not normal, he
Of life to seriously for shy. reserved man like
himself already yerging upon forty and settling down
approval upon the junior member of the established
house Of Marvin Melish, and ceverly manouvred to
their diplomacy He had simply allowed himself to
be caoled, deluded hypnoized into the belief that
ton Nora really loved him Even now, after FIVE
years. there were ieeting hours haeyon days when
the first the discrepancy in age had rankled in him.
begettng vague suspicious morbid doubts symptoms of
day he realized with wave Of seif-eonempt that he
was jealous-he. Mesh in his sober middle age jeal-
of calow youths with the bloom of undergraduate
conce fresh upon them, the jargon of football in their
speech; jealous of compliment mur1ured III her
the burden that he carried secretly. the incubus
of an underlined, unjustihcd Jealousy AT times more
threatened to crystallze But he had never quite put
them into words even beneath his breath never mar
all he had sought to hide his burden from Nora her
self, as one hides physical deformity:
and on an
generation. Mellsh paused uncertainty peering blind
where behind that broad expanse of spotess window
Nora still there; wondering, indeed II she had
been there at all
and still Mesh fingered, staring Intellectually at the
doorway, through which he had already ceased to
pect her to appear. Suddenly bevy of women came
out together, two, four yes, six of them He could
their faces from across the street Mrs Faver,
green MORE was unrnistakable even his poor eyes
showed that. He made reckless plunge in front OF
because his thoughts like his gaze, fastened on
that group OF women across the way half hidden be
he thought with gladness that almost pain. But
as the automobile moved out OF his path he saw her
man sprang in after her. slender man, of medium
height whose face he could not see The other women
mattercd where if they not after ALL Mrs: Faver-
sham's luncheon party. He arrived beside the cab;
soft watery Simmer of the green MORE one more
step and he could have reached out his hand and an,
inch of Mellishs ear. The horse. yellow with
foorold on the slippery asphalt, then lurched sud-
denly forward and swept the woman and her com.
panon from, his astounded around the corner and
any other time had The question been laid i'm,
who tried follow foot rapidly, retreating
hanson cab through the crowded maze OF New York
during ns the 0Gsy Isn Is In
the present crisis he did not to consider. but
simply gathered himself together and sprinted nln1by
down the forgetting for to be selfcon-
scous. his long thin legs flashing like the long thin
spokes of rapidly turning wheel his glasses threaten
ing slip from the bridge of his long thin nose his
near-siged eyes strainng heplessly after the yellow
that fitted like thing OF evil in and out through
the endless of landaus. motor omnibuses
and business wagons. At Twenty-hfth Street the
mounted police. stationed there to regulate traffic:
waved the south bound stream of vehicles westward
towards Broadway through the tag end of city block
that forms the base of the Worth Monument triangle
As they swung in single e first right then left again,
electric for blocked the procession.
Mellish's first lucid thought to spring into
of the many vacant hansons that waited along the
curb and bid him follow the yellow which this
time threatened seriously elude him. He waved
one spasmodically with his long Then it
promptly responded. he waved it again He
realized suddenly that he could not bring himself to
take a stranger. unknown cab driver, far
into his confidence bid him follow that other
Ransom No. he could his jealousy TO a
cab driver: already he pictured the ronica1 curiosity
in the fellows eyes. Instead, he swung himself
Broadway open that for two blocks shot south
ward with such speed that he gained rapid
" the fugitives when Twentythird Street he
suddenly lost sight of them altogether. He from
the seat he had just taken in bewiderment of help
less indecision But the car had started once more
before he could decide to get Off and the next minute