Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1907-02-07

there in the doorway, looking half timidly
out at them, with her hand still on the
knob. How far away it seemed; and yet,
as the world went, it could be counted in
months He had thought her a mere girl at
first. and he recalled how he imagined
there had been mistake in the house
number, as he saw the well-groomed figure
| in black. with its wealth of waving chest
nut hair. and the brooding violet eyes with
there wordless look of childish WEAKNESS
1t was only later that he had taken note of
the ever betraying fulness of throat and
breast, and the touch of mature woman
mood in the shadows about the wistful eyes
He remembered. point by point the slow
English voice. with its full-voweled softness
OF tone, as she answered MacNutt's quick
questions, the warm mouth and it's sugges-
ton of impuSiveness, the girlishly winning
smile with which she had welcomed him as
her partner in that house of underground
operating and unlooked-for adventure, the
quick and nervous movements OF the mus
cuFar body that always carried with it a
sense of steely strength half-sheathed in
softness.
Bit by bit he recalled their tasks and
| their perls together.
What touched him most, as he paced the
odorous, lamp-hung valley of the Rialto
was the memory of this wistful woman
sporadlc yet passionate efforts to lead him
back to honesty. Each effort, he knew,
had been futile, though for her sake alone
ne had made not few unthought of strug-
g,es to De st decent dec and open and aboveboard
But the fnebriation of great hazards was
IN his veins. They had taken great chances
together; and thereafter, he felt, it could
De only great chances that would move and
stir and hold them. Now he would never
be content, he knew, to lounge about the
quiet little inns of life, with the memory of
those vast adventures Of the open In his
heart and the thirst for those vast hazards
in his veins.
AS ne turned, in Longacre Square, to look
pack at that turbulent valley of lights below
MIN, ne remembered. anonymously enough,
that the midnight Tenderloin was the most
thoroughly policed Of all portions of the
city-the most guarded of all districts in the
world. And what a name for it, he thought
the Ienderloin. the tenderest and most de-
lectable, the juiciest and the most sustain
Ing district in all New York, for the lawless
egoist. whether his self-seeking took the
form of pleasure or whether it took the
form of profit!
A momentary feeling of repugnance at
what was unlovely in life crept over him.
but he solaced himself with the thought
that, after all, it was the goodness t. bad
people and the badness in good people that
held the notified fabric together in its tight
meshed union of contradic tions
Then his spirit of loneliness returned to
him, and his thoughts went back to Frances
was that her casual womans touch seemed
even to dignity and consecrate open crime
itself He felt that he was una..o, now to
move and act without her. And as he
him, of the sustaining sense Of GOODNESS and
rest which she brought with her. he remem-
bered his first restless ni-ht in New York
when he had been unable to sleep, because
of the heat in his sitting little hall bed
room, and had walked the breathless, I'M
known streets, until suddenly on his face he
mad felt cool touch Of wind, and the old
time balm of grass and trees and green
things had struck into his startled nostriIs
1t was Central Park that he had stumbled
on, he learned later; and he crept into it
and fell placidly asleep on one Of the shad-
owy benches.
His memory, as he turned to take a last
look down the Lightning canon Of the Rial
to. was Of the evening that he and his desk
mate, Eddie Crawford, had trst driven
down that luminous highway in a hanson.
and the lights and the movement and the
stir of 1t had gone to his bewildered young
head. For he had leaned out over those IT,
tanic tides and exclaimed, with vague and
foolish f1erceness: MY -, Eddie some
day I'm going to get grip on this town.
Cro be Continued Tomorrow