Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1908-02-18
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ELEVEN

6sN2AHA lMWt2
For week or more the snow con
tinued Colder. gloomier weather SET
in. and the impending menace of Ash
Wednesday redoubled the social pace
eliminating in the Westervelt ball on
the eve of the forty days, and Sylvia
had not yet seen Siward or spoken to
him again across the wilderness OF
streets and men.
In the first relaxation Of Lent she
had instinctively welcomed an oppor-
tunity for spiritual consolation and a
chance to take her spiritual bearings
not because OF bodily fatigue. for In
the splendor of her youthful vigor she
did not know what that meant
To st. Berolds she went in cure Of
her soul She was fond Of Father
Curtis, who. II he were every inch a
priest. was also every foot Of his six
feet man-simple. good and brave.
However, she found little opportu
nifty, save at her brief confession, for
fashionable to adore Father Curtis.
and for that reason she shrank from
,cnturing any demand upon his time,
and nobody else at st. Berold'S ap-
pealed to her.
Agatha Caithness was there a great
de- |, looking like a saint in her sub
dued plumage and very devout, dodg
ing nothing, neither confession nor
Quarters occasionally lifted eyes.
though their gaze, meeting. seemed
lost In dreamy devotion or drowned in
the contemplation of the spiritual and
remote.
Plank came docilely from his Dutch
Reformed church to sit beside Leila.
AS for Mortimer, once vestry man.
he never came at all. There was a
new set Of men among whom he had
recently drifted. to the unfeigned dis
gust of gentlemen like Major Bel
wether-"club'' men in the componer
and more sinister Interpretation Of the
word.
Mortimer stayed out at night very
frequently now; also he appeared to
make his money go further or was
luckier at his card Killings" because
he seldom attempted to bully Leila.
being apparently content with his al
lowance.
Once or twice Plank saw him with
an unusually attractive girl belonging
to world very far removed from
Lella's. Somebody said she was al
actress when she did anything at all
one Lydia Vyse. somewhat celebrat-
ed for an audacity not too delicate.
But Plank was no more interested
than any man who can't afford to en-
danger his prospects by closer &C.
ouaintance with that sort Of pretty
woman.
Meanwhile Mortimer kept away from
home, wife and church, and Plank fire.
quented them, so the two men did not
meet very often. and the less they
met the less they found to say to one
another.
Though the opera was over, theaters
questionable, formal functions sus-
pended and dances ended, the pace
still Icontinued at discreet and dec
orous trot, and those who had not fled
to California or Palm Beach remained
to pray and play bridge with an
unction-1nost edifying.
And all this while Sylvia had not
seen SiWard
Sylvia was changing. The character
istic amiability, the sensitive reserve,
the sweet composure which the world
had always counted on in her, had be-
come exceptions and no longer the
rules which governed the caprice and
impulse always latent. An indiffer-
ence so pointed as to verge on 1nso-
lence amazed her intimates at times.
A sudden, flushed impotence startled
the habitues of her shrine. There was
a new, unseeing hardness in her eyes,
in her attitude the faintest hint OF
cynicism For the first time slight
sense of fear tinctured the general ad-
miration.
In public her indifference and grow
ing Impotence with Quarter had not
reached the verge Of bad taste, but in
private she was scarcely at pains to
conceal her WEAKNESS and inattention.
That he noticed it was evident even to
her, who carelessly ignored the conse-
quences of her own attitude.
At the Mi-careme dance given by the
Siowa Hunt, Quarter who was NJ. f..
H.. led the cotillon with agreeable pre-
cision and impersonal accuracy, favor
ing her at intervals. She returned to
town next morning with Grace Ferrall,
irritable, sulky, furious with herself.
All hot with self contempt, she lay
back in the comfortably upholstered
corner of the brougham, staring
straight before her. sullen red mouth