The Irish standard., 1908-08-29

AOHucWdlu-UOuuu cACuISlOu steamer,
tier upon tier of glittering lights,
drifted slowly toward it's pier beneath
the new bridge, the blare of its band,
swelling and dying upon the night
breeze, mercifully tempered by dis.
lance.
Presently Maitland's attention was
distracted and drawn, by the abrupt
cessation of its motors pulsing, to the
automobile on his right. He lifted his
chin sharply, narrowing his eyes,
whistled low; and thereafter had eyes
for nothing else.
The car, he saw with the expert.
snced eye OF connoisseur, was re-
cent model of one of the most ex-
pensive and popular foreign makes;
built on lines that promised a deal in
the way Of speed, and furnished with
engines that were pregnant with multi
piled horse power. All in all not the
style of car one would expect to find
controlled by a solitary woman, es-
pecially after ten of summers night.
Nevertheless the lone occupant of
this car was woman. And there was
that in her bearing, an indefinable
OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES it lay in the car
riage of her head, which impressed
one as both spirited and independent,
or in an equally certain but less tan
gible air of self-conf1dence and re-
lfance-to set Mad Maitland's pulses
drumming with excitement. For, I'M
less indeed he labored gravely under
misapprehension, he was observing
her for the second time within the
past few hours.
Could he be mistaken, or was this in
truth the same woman who had (as
he believed) made herself free of his
rooms that evening?
In confirmation of such suspicion he
remarked her costume, which was al
together worked out in soft shades of
gray. Gray was the misty veil, drawn
in and daintily knotted beneath her
chin, which lent her head and face
such thorough protection against pry-
ing glances; of gray suede were the
light gauntlets that hid all save the
slenderness of her small hands; and
the wrap that, cut upon full and flow
ing lines, cloaked her figure beyond
suggestion, was gray. Yet even It's
ample drapery could not dissemble
the fact that she was quite small,
girlishly slight, like the woman in the
doorway; nor did aught temper her
impersonal and detached composure,
which had also been an attribute of
the woman in the doorway. And again
she was alone, unchaperoned, unpro-
tected.
Yes? Or no? And, If yes, what to
do? Was he to alight and accost her,
accuse her Of forcing an entrance to
his rooms for the sole purpose (as far
as ascertainable) of presenting him
with the outline of her hand in the
dust of his desks top? Oh,
hardly! 1t was all very we'll to be
daringly eccentric and careless of the
worlds censure; but one scarcely
cared to lay ones self open either to
an unknown girls derision or to a
sound pummeling at the hands Of fell
low passengers enraged by the insult
offered to an unescorted woman.
The young man was still bordering
ways and means when dull bump ap-
prised him that the ferry boat was en-
tering the Long Island City slip. 1.-THE
DEVIL" he exclaimed in mingled dis
gust and dismay, realizing that his
distraction had been SO thorough as to
permit the voyage to take place almost
without his realizing 1t. So that now
worse luck!-it was too late to take
any one of the hundred fantastic steps
he had contemplated half seriously. In
another two minutes his charming
mystery, so bewitchingly incarnted,
would have slipped out of his life, f.
nally and beyond recall. And he could
do naught to hinder such a finale to
the adventure.
Sulkily he resigned himself to the
inevitable. waiting and watching,
while the boat slid and blundered
clumsily, paddle wheels churning the
filthy waters over side, to the floating
bridge; while the winches ratified, and
the woman, sitting up briskly in the
drivers seat of the motor car, bent
forward and advanced the spark; while
the chain fell clankfng and the car
shot out, over the bridge, through the
gates, and away, at very consider
able, even If lawful, rate Of speed.
Whereupon, writing fms to the final
chapter Of Romance, voting the world
a dull place and life a treadmill, an
alternating in no uncertain terms his
lack of resource and address, Maitland
paid of his cabby, alighted, and to
that worthy's boundless wonder,
walked into the waiting room Of the
railway terminus without deviating q
hairs breadth from the straight and
circumscribed path of the sober in
mind and body.
The 1920 had departed by bare
two minutes. The next and last train
for Greenfields was to leave at 1889.
Maitland with assumed nonchalance
composed himself upon a bench in the
waiting room to endure the 37-minute
interval. Five minutes later an able.
bodied washerwoman with six children
IN nuortor cizec doseopdod ,,oop tho