Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1907-11-07
P XIV.

H. @IHt SIAAA I0IS ave-
For hours together now, she would
her In the silent reaches or to hide
with her in backwaters to which the
mob rarely came. Deluding him by
promise that her father was returning
shortly from Paris and would come.
to Henley Immediately upon his arri-
val, petted him as though he had
teen her lover through the years, in
vited him hundreds of times q day to
say. 81 love you-you shall be my
In his turn, he remained silent
and amazed. tempted sorely by her
beauty, not understanding and yet
desiring to understand why he could
not love her. True, indeed, that the
Image Of another would intervene
sometimes little figure In rags,
a and pitiful and alone; but the
Environment In which the vision of the
post had moved, the slums, the alleys,
the mean streets, these would hedge
the picture about then leave the dream
er averse and shuddering. Not there
could liberty be found again. The
world must show its fields to the wan
derer when again he dared alone.
Alban remembered one night above
all others of this strange %seclusion.
and that was a night of a woman's
humiliation. There had been great
hustle all day, the coming of oars
men and of coaches to Henley, and all
the Aquatic renaissance which pre-
faces the great regatta. Their own
cottage, lying just above the bridge
with a shady garden extending to the
waters edge, was no longer the place
apart that it had % Strangers
now anchored a little way from their
boat house and consumed monstrous
packets of sandwiches and the con
tents of abundant bottles There were
house boats being tugged up and
down the river, little groups Of row
ing men unnn the bridge all day. the
music Of banjos by night, and lanterns
glowing IN the darkness. Anna
watched this pretty seem as one who
would really take a young girls part
In 1t one stimulated an interest
in the rowing about which she knew
nothing at all-visited the house boats
of such Of her friends as had come
down for the regatta, and was, IN
Willy FORESTS words, as "skittish
dS IWoyCulTolu ludI udu SllppoQ Us
halter" Forrest had been to and fro
from the stable near Winchester on
several occasions. HE comes to tell
me that / am about to lose a fortune,
and am beginning to hate him."
Anna said; and on this occasion she
enjoyed that diverting and unac-
customed recreation known as speak
ing the truth.
There had been such a visit as this
upon the morning of the day when
Anna spoke intimately to Alban of
his future and her own. Her mood
now abandoned itself utterly to her
purpose. The close intimacy of these
quiet days had brought her to the
point where a real If momentary pas
sion compelled her to desire this
boys love as she had desired
anything in all her life. To bring
him to that declaration she sought so
a%rdently, to feel his kisses upon her
lips, to play the young lovers part il
it were but for a day, to this folly
her vanity had driven her. And now
the opportunities for words were not
denied: She had spent the afternoon
in the backwaters up by Shiplake;
there had been a little dinner after
wards with the old crone who served
them SO usefully as chaperone = a
dependent who had eyes but did not
see, ears which. as she herself de
clared, would think scorn to listen
Amiable dame, she was in bed by 8
o'clock, while Alban and Anna were
lying in a punt at the waters edge,
listening to the music of a distant
guitar and watching the twinkling
lights far away below the bridge
where the boat houses stand.
A Chinese lantern suspended upon
a short boat hook cast a deep Grim
sen glow upon the faces of those whc
might well have been young lovers
The river rippled unsteady against
the square bows of their ugly but
comfortable crafts. But few passed
them by and those were also seek
ers after solitude, with no eyes TO,
their co~-religionists in the amatory