The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1910-11-04
The EVENING STORY
The Dead Level.
(By Louise Olney.1

(By Louise Olney.0
Emily Warren, in her sweet, slow
figures which she had just finished
adding with lightning speed, and
proceeded to listen to the younger
girl who had been vainly talking to
her the last five minutes.
What are you saying. Madge?"
Madge snapped her Irritation.
Emily, you're enough to vex a
saint, and I'm not one, as you know!
Here it's ten minutes past closing
time, the others all gone, and here
not that 1 really believe you enjoy
anythingi'
Emily. who must have been nearly
thirty, rose deliberately, closed her
season or two out of style, began
putting it on without even a pat at
her unadorned. abundant dark hair.
| Madge continued her plant: You
act a hundred, Emily! If didn't
adore you. I would give you up TO go
your way! but won't be snubbed, as
you manage to snub the other girls,
! though you're perfectly sweet in man
ner! intend to pull you out of your
hole and show the world what won
der you arel''
"Cut out your hero worship, child.
and go to supper with me. I'm get
! ting it in my own rooms now-it's
more convenient and COY
"And shuts you away from other
people more than ever" interrupted
the other. How you stand this dead
level you live on, 1 don't see! You
never go anywhere, nor sec anybody;
| them. You wouldn't ask me to sup
per if you thought you could get rid of
me some other way-would your"
| Emily flushed and laughed a little.
Il do-like you, Madge but I'm not
very friendly, I suppose. Won't you
come with me and see whether I mean
my invitation?"
81 can't tonight-I'm going out with
Bobby Peters to supper, and after that
to the theater. And after that-some
months after-Im going to marry
Bobby! I'm awfuly in love with him,
and L am glad to say so to you, right
to care what love means! No, I'm
not a bit afraid of you-somebod
ought to tell you that you ought to be
| ashamed of the way you treat John
! Trenton! I know the whole story"
Emily stared Nobody had ever
talked in this way to her. but the
girl went on after they had reached
/ the street.
Hes been eating his heart out for
you for eight years, and now he's
Junior partner, and has home and
everything, but you've crushed the
courage out of him for so long that
suppose he has even stopped asking
you to marry him. 1t would serve
you exactly right If Sadie Morgan sue
ceeds in getting him, the mink! She's
trying, assure you. Did you notice
her get-up this morning? Won't she
make him a lovely wife? She's about
fourteen years younger than he-just
the right age to appeal to a man
who's tired of the dead level Of BUSH
ness and looking every day at a wom-
an he can't get. What you got against
him? Well, here's where I turn off.
| Goodbye
The little imp left the older woman
shocked and dazed. Was all this
true? Had it been eight years? Was
she heartless? Had John asked her
to marry him for the last time, be-
cause he really thought she did not
care? Was the Office becoming
habit? And was she selfish? She
went home, got into a neat house
dress, and began to prepare her lone
ly supper.
AS she ate her meal with little ap-
petite, she wondered what made her
depressed, uncomfortable, vaguely
She sat thinking, her tea cooling.
Could it be possible that that little
goose of a Sadie-w1y. Sadie would
make him miserable - f1ippant.
mercenary rosebud of a thing! And
then she knew that she was Jealous
actually Jealous! The wonder and
the hurt of it swept across her heart.
She remembered that almost a year
had passed since he had come to see
her She had been lost in a sort of
apathy, so used to his steady affection
that she had ceased to know when it
probably had ceased.
She tried to think just why 1t was
that she had not married him years
ago-oh, yes, at first it was that his
old mother lived with him, and she
would not live with mother-in-law.
She had seen other families made
miserable that way. And then he
} had taken to smoking. which she de-
tested, and they had disa greed even on
politics-and especially on religion.
That is, she had found fault with his
ideas.
Dispiritedly enough she washed her
few pretty blue dishes and thought
what fool she was Dark had fallen,
and the lamp was lit; she drew the
homelike coziness. What for? She
laughed bitterly at herself Here she
: was twenty-nine past. acting like a
girl expecting boy lover! Well,
Probably he was taking that little
nothing of a Sadie somewhere. She
went into the bedroom, lighted the
gas over the mirror, and looked at
herself as she put on the soft but
rather worn and old fashioned rose
colored dress he had once liked so
much Ridiculing herself as she did
so, she let down her thick dark hair
and rewound it softly and becoming
} ly about her head, loosening it about
the temples It took five years from
her age.
Back in the sitting room she took
her chair close to the light and picked
up some sewing, but the stitches
would not go straight. she tried to
read, but the story she picked up
seemed inane and tiresome. What
was the use? Then another thought
I came to her-what if she should call
him up over the phone in the hall and
) ask him to come to see her! Could
( she? She never had done so-she
: had an old fashioned dislike for a
lwoman's making any advance to even
i4l.o fria