The White Pine news. [volume] (Ely, Nev.) 1906-1910, 1907-07-20

posrr1on must be the same 30 uxv o.
any other clerk In the Office. We both
finally left her to herself. Bob ak
planned to me, some three weeks after
she came to the office, that she re-
ceived no visitors at her home, hotel
on a quiet uptown street, and that
even he had never had permission to
call upon her there.
But from the day she came to- occu-
by her desk In our ONCE, Bob was a
changed man, whether for better or
for worse neither Kate nor could de-
eide. His old bounding elasticity was
gone, and with 1t his rollicking laugh
He was now man where before he
had been a boy, man with a burden.
Even If I had not heard Beulah Sands
story, should have guessed that Bob
was staggering under strange load
While before, from the close of the
stock exchange until its opening the
next morning, he was, as Kate was
fond of putting 1t, always ready to I'LL
in for anything from chaperon to
nurse, always open for any lark we
planned from q Bohemian dinner to
the opera, now weeks went by without
our seeing him at our house. In the
office 1t used to be a saying that out
side gong-strikes, Bob Brownley did
not know he was in the stock business.
Formerly every clerk knew when Bob
came or went, for 1t was with rush,
q shout, laugh, and bang of doors;
and on the floor Of the stock exchange
no man played so many pranks, or
filled his orders with SO much jolly
good-nature and hilarious boisterous.
ness. But from the day the Virginian
girl crossed his path, Bob BROMLEY
was a man who was thinking, think
ing, thinking all the time. 1t was only
with an effort that he would keep his
eyes ON whomever he was talking with
long enough to take in what was said,
and II the saying occupied much time
it would be apparent to the talker that
Bob was of In the clouds. All his
friends and associates remarked the
change, but l alone, except perhaps
Kate, had any idea of the cause.
knew that two million dollars and the
coming New Year were hurdling like
kangaroos over Bob's mental rails and
bitches, though did not know 1t from
anything he told me, for after that
talk on the upper deck of the Tribes
man he had shut up like clam.
He did not exactly shun me, but
showed me in many ways that he
had entered into new world, in
which he desired to be alone. That
Beulah Sands plight had reused into
intense activity all the latent romance
of my friends nature, did not sur
prise me. l foresaw from the first
that Bob would fall head over heels
in love with this beautiful, sorrow
laden girl, and 1t was soon obvious
that the longdelayed shaft had plant
ed its point in the innermost depths
of his being. His was more than love;
fervid idolatry now had possession
of his soul, mind and body. Yet its
outward manifestations were the op-
posite of what one would have looked
for in this gay and optimistic south
erner. 1t was rather priest-like wor-
ship, a calm imperturbability that
nothing seemed to distract or upset,
at least in the presence Of the goddess
who was its object. Every morning
he would pass through my Office head
ed straight for the little room she &C.
cupied as IL 1t we're his one objective
point of the day, but once he heard
his own Good morning, Miss Sands"
he seemed to round to, and while in
her presence was the Bob BROMLEY of
old He would be in and out all
day on any and every pretext, al
ways entering with an undisguised
leaving with slow, dreamy
reluctance. That he never saw her
outside the office, am sure, for she
said goodnight to him when he or
she left for the day, with the same
ont-come-with.me dignity that she
exhibited to all the rest of US. I
had not attempted to say word to
Bob about his feeling for Beulah
Sands, nor had he ever brought up
the subject to me. On the contrary,
he studiously avoided II
CONTINUED Next Saturday,