The citizen. (Honesdale, Pa.) 1908-1914, 1909-01-20
gazing at him almost sadly.


stall, don't predict"
nina, you are madder than a March
heiress!''
"Air your theories, Phil, then come
back to realities. The conditions re-
main. Eileen is certainly a little in
love with you, and a little with her
means something. And you evidently
have never harbored any serious in.
tentions toward the child. 1 can see
that, because you are the most trans
parent man I ever knew. Now, the
question is, What IS to be doneY'
II am, OF course, obliged to believe
that you are mistaken" he said. "A
man cannot choose but believe In that
manner. There Is no very young girl.
nobody, old or young, whom like aa
thoroughly as do Eileen Enroll. She
knows 1t; so do you, Nina. 1t is open
and aboveboard. should be very un-
happy If anything marred or distorted
our friendship. I am quite confident
that nothing will"
In that frame Of mind" said his
sister, smiling you are the healthiest
companion In the world for her. for
you will either cure her or she Won.
and 1t Is all right either way"
Certainly 1t win be all right" he
said confidently.
For a few moments he paced the
room, reflective, quickening his pace
all the while, and his sister watched
him, silent In her indecision.
I'm going up to see the kids" he
said abruptly.
The children, one and all, were in
the park, but Eileen was sewing In
the nursery, and his sister did not call
MIN back as he swung out Of the room
and up the stairs. But when he had
disappeared Nina dropped into her
chair, aware that she had played her
best card prematurely, forced by Ros-
amund, who had Just told her that
rumor continued to be very busy cou-
pling her brothers name with the
name Of the woman who once had
been his wife.
Nina was now thoroughly convinced
OF Alixe's unusual capacity for making
mischief.
She had known Alike always. and
she had seen her develop from a tai
ented. restless, erratic, emotional girl.
easily moved to generosity, into an
impulsive woman, reckless to the
point Of ruthlessness when ennui and
unhappiness stampeded her, a woman
not deliberately selfish, not Willingly
immoral, for she lacked the passion
which her emotion was sometimes mis-
taken for, and she was kind by in
stinct.
Sufficiently intelligent to suffer from
the lack of 1t in others, cultured to the
point of recognizing culture, her dan
gerous unsoundness lay in her utter
lack of mental stamina when condi-
tions became unpleasant beyond her
will, not her ability to endure them.
The consequences of her own errors
she refused to be burdened with. To
escape somehow was her paramount
impulse, and she always tried to-had
always attempted it even in school
days-and further back when Nina
first remembered her as thin, eager,
restless little girl scampering from one
scrape into another at full speed.
Even in those days there were mo-
ments when Nina believed her to be
actually irrational. but there was every
reason not to say so to the needless
scatterbrain whose father in the prime
of life sat all day in his room, his
faded eyes fixed wistfully on the child
iSh toys which his attendant brought
to him from his daughters nursery.
All this Nina was remembering. and
treatment of her brother and what eX-
PLANTATION there could ever be for it
except one.
Lately, too, Alike had scarcely been
at pains to conceal her contempt for
her husband, if what Rosamund relat-
ed was true. 1t was only one more
headlong scrape, this second marriage,
and Nina knew Alike well enough to
expect the usual stampede toward that
gay phantom which was always beck
oning onward to promised happiness,
that goal of hearts desire already ly-
ing so far behind her, and farther still,
for every step her little flying feet
were taking in the Oldest the vainest,
the most hopeless, chase in the world
the hcadlong hunt for happiness.
And if that blind hunt should lead
once more toward Selwyn? Suppose,
freed from Ruthven, she turned in her
tracks and threw herself and her
youthful unhappiness straight at the
man who had not yet destroyed the
picture that Nina found when she visit
ed her brothers rooms with the desire
to be good to him with rocking chairs.
Not that she really believed or feared
that Philip would consider such an
impossible reconciliation; pride and a
sense of the absurd must always check
any such weird caprice of her broth
er's conscience, and yet-and yet other
amazing and mismated couples had
done it-had been reunited.
And Nina was nightly troubled, for
Alixe's capacity for mischief was
boundless, and that she In some man
ner had already succeeded in stirring
up Philip was a rumor that persisted
and would not be annihilated.
To inform a man frankly that a