Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1907-05-29
CHAPTER xxIv.-continued.
OE1YZ211IT 4

little harbor, 1 saw Mowbray Lang
| ion's Incidence at anchor. l glanced
| toward Steuben Point-where his
cousins, the Vivians, lived-and
thought l recognized his launch at
their pier. We saluted the Incidence;
the Incidence saluted us. My launch
was piped away and took me ashore.
strolled along the path that wound
round the base of the hill toward the
kennels. At the crossing of the path
down from the house, / paused and
fingered on the glimpse of one of the
corner towers of the great SNOWY
palace. 1 was muttering something
l listened to myself. 1t was: Null
holland. Mrs. Mulholland and the four
little Mulhollands." And l felt like
laughing aloud, such a joke was it
that l should be envying policeman
his potato patch and his fat wife and
his four brats, and that he should be
in position to pity me.
You may be imagining that. through
all, Anita had been dominating my
mind. That is the way it is in the
romances; but not in life. No doubt
there are men who brood upon the
impossible, and moon and maunder
away their lives over the grave of
dead love; no doubt there are people
who will say that, because 1 did not
shoot Langdon or her, or myself, or
fly to desert or pose in the crowded
places of the world as the last scene
of a tragedy, l therefore cared little
about her. l offer them this sugges-
ton: A man strong enough to give
love worth a woman's while is
strong enough to live on without her
when he finds he may not live with
her
AS I stood there that summer day,
looking toward the crest of the hill,
at the hooking mausoleum of my dead
dream, | realized what the inceSsant
battle of the street had meant to me.
There is peace for me only in the
storm" said l. "But, thank God, there
is peace for me somewhere"
Through the foliage l had glimpses
of some one coming slowly down the
zigzag path. Presently, at one of the
turnings halfway up the HILL appeared
Mowbray Langdon. What is he do
ing here" thought l, scarcely able to
believe my eyes. Here of all places!"
And then | forgot the strangeness of
his being at Dawn Hill in the strange
ness of his expression. For it was ap-
parent, even at the distance which
separated us, that he was suffering
from some great and recent blow. He
looked old and haggard; he walked
like man who neither knows nor
cares where he is going.
He had not seen me. and my i'm
pulse was to avoid him by continuing
on toward the kennels. l had no es-
pecial feeling against him; l had not
lost Anita because she cared for him
or he for her, but because she did not
care for me-simply that to meet
would be awkward, disagreeable for
us both. At the slight noise of my
movement to go on, he halted, glanced
round eagerly, as if he hoped the
sound had been made by some one he
wished to see. His glance fell on me-
He stopped short, was for an instant
disconnected; then his face lighted I'D
with devilish joy. YOU" he cried
Just the mani And he descended
more rapidly.
At first could make nothing of this
remark. But as he drew nearer and
nearer, and his ugly mood became
more apparent, l felt that he was look.
ing forward to provoking me into Civ
ing him a distraction from whatever
was tormenting him. l waited A few
minutes and we were face to face. ]
outwardly calm. but my anger SLOWLY
lighting up as he deliberately applied
| to 1t the torch of his insolent ewes. He
was wearing his old familiar air of
cynical assurance. Evidently. with
MS recovered fortune, he had recoy-
cred his conviction of his great su.
periority to the rest of the human
race-the child had climbed back on
the chair that made it tall and had
forgotten its tumble. And | was won
dering again that i, so short a time
before, had been crude enough to he
fascinated and fooled by those tawdrv
/ posings and pretenses. For the man
as now saw him, was obviously shall.
low and vain, slave to those moor
"man-of-the-world'' passions-ostenta.
ton and cynicism and skill at vices old
as mankind and tedious as a tread.
mill, the commonplace routine of the
idle and foolish and purposeless. A
clever, handsome fellow, but the more
pitiful that he was by nature above
the uses to which he prostituted him
self.
He fought hard to keep his eyes stead
fly on mine; but they would waver and
shift Not, however, before / had
found deep down in them the begin
nings of fear. You see, you were
mistaken" said l. You have nothins
to say to me-or to YOU
| He knew I had looked straight to the
bottom of his real self, and had seer
the coward that is in every man whs
has been bred to appearances only
Up rose his vanity, the towards sub
stitute for courage.
i IL