Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1908-02-17
The Fighting
Chance. sa ;;;;i;:, ::
Copyright Publishing
Copyright 1906 by Robert w. Chambers
R] CHAPTER
HMAl ELEVEN
Copyright, 1904 by the Curtis Publishing Company.
Copyright, 1906. by Robert W. Chambers.

An hour later. fresh from her bath.
luxurious in loose and filmy lace her
small white feet shod 18th silk. she
lunched alone Graded among the cush-
ions of her couch.
Twice she strolled through the rooms
leisurely. summoned by her maid to
the telephone, the first time to chat
with Grace Ferrall who. it appeared
was victim of dissipation. being still
worlds the second time to answer in
the negative Marion's suggestion that
she motor to Lakewood with her for
the weeks end before they closed their
house.
Sauntering back again, she slipped
her milk and vichy, tasted the straw
berries, tasted big black grape. dis
carded both and lay back among the
cushions her mixed arms clasped be-
hind her head. and. dropping one knee
over the other, stared at the ceiling.
The room was very still and dim, but
the clamor In her brain unnerved her,
and she sat up among the cushions,
looking vacantly about her with the
blue, confused eyes, the direct, unse'e-
ing gaze of child reused by half
heard call.
The call-low, imperative. sustained
continued softly persistent against
her windows, the summons of the
young years rain.
She went to the window and stood
among the filmy curtains, looking out
into the mist. A springlike aroma pen
etrated the room. She opened the
window little way, and the sweet,
virile odor enveloped her.
A thousand longings rose within her.
Unnumbered wistful questions stirred
her, signing unanswered Every breath
was drawing her backward, nearer.
nearer to the source of memory. All,
the cliff chapel in the rain. The words
Of text mumbled deafly-the yearly
service for those who died at sea. And
she, seated there in the chapel dusk
thinking Of him who sat beside her
and how he feared a heavier, stealth
Ter, more secret tide crawling, purring
about his feet.
Always, always at the end Of every
thing, he! Always, reckoning step by
step, backward through time, he, the
source, the inception, the meaning of
all.
Unmoored at last, her spirit swaying.
enveloped in memories of him, she
gave herself to the flood, overwhelmed
as tide on tide rose, rushing over her,
body, mind and soul.
She closed her eyes, leaning there
heavily amid the cloudy curtains. She
moved back into the room and stood
staring at space through wet lashes.
The hard, dry pulse In her throat hurt
her till her under lip, freed from the
tyranny of her small teeth, slipped
free, quivering rebellion.
She had been walking her room to
and fro. to and fro, for long time
before she realized that she had moved
at all.
And now impulse held the helm. A
blind, unreasoning desire for relief hur-
ried into action on the wings Of i'm
pulse.
There was telephone at her elbow.
No need to hunt through lists to find
a number she had known so long by
heart, the three figures which had re-
iterated themselves so often, monoto-
nously insistent. slyly persuasive. re-
peating themselves even in her dreams.
so that she awoke at times shivering
with the vision in which she had listen
ed to temptation and had called to
him across the wilderness of streets
and men.
q .