The Caucasian. (Shreveport, La.) 1900-192?, 1910-12-20

upon Helen's hand, and out of the
window and down the fire escape
sprang John Delaney, Africa bound.
A little slow music, if you please
faint violin, just breath in the clari-
net and touch of the cello. Imagine
the scene! Frank, white hot, with the
cry of a man wounded to death burst
ing from him; Helen, rushing and
clinging to him, trying to explain. He
catches her wrists and tears them
from his shoulders-once, twice, thrice
he sways her this way and that-the
stage manager will show you how
and throws her from him to the floor
huddled, crushed, moaning thing.
Never, he cries, will he look upon her
face again, and rushes from the house
through the staring groups of aston
ished guests.
And now, because it is the thing in
stead of the play, the audience must
stroll out Into the real lobby of the
world and marry, die, grow gray, rich,
poor, happy or sad during the inter-
mission of twenty years which must
precede the rising of the curtain again.
Mrs. Barry inherited the shop and
the house. At thirty eight she could
have bested many an eighteen-year old
at a beauty show on points and gen.
eral results. Only few people re-
membered her wedding comedy, but
she made of 1t no secret.
h
ing lawyer, who bought his legal cap
and ink of her, asked her across the
counter to marry him.
SIN really much obliged to YOU"
said Helen cheerfully, but i married
another man twenty years ago, He
was more a goose than man, but
think | love him yet. / have never
seen him since about half an hour aft
er the ceremony. Was it copying ink
that you wanted or just writing fuidF'
The lawyer bowed over the counter
with old time grace and left a re-
spectful kiss on the back Of her hand
Helen sighed. Parting salutes, how
ever romantic, may be overdone. Here
she was at thirty-eight, beautiful and
admired and all that she seemed to
have got from her lovers were re-
proaches and adieus.
Business languished, and she hung
out Room to Let" card Two large
rooms on the third floor were pre-
pared for desirable tenants.
One day came Ramonti, the violinist,
and engaged the front room above.
Ramonti, with his still youthful face,
his dark eyebrows, his distinguished
! head of gray hair and his artists tenn
perament-revealed in his light, gay
and sympathetic manner-was a well
come tenant in the old house near
Abingdon square.
Helen lived on the floor above the
store. The architecture OF it was sin
gular and quaint The hall was large
and almost square. Up one side of it
and then across the end of 1t ascend
ed an open stairway to the floor above.
This hall space she had furnished as
a sitting room and office combined.
There she kept her desk and wrote her
evenings by a warm fire and bright
red light and sewed or read. Ramonti
found the atmosphere SO agreeable
that he spent much time there, describ-
ing to Mrs. Barry the wonders of Paris,
where he had studied with q particu-
larly notorious and noisy fiddler
Next comes lodger No. 2, hand
some, melancholy man In the early
forties, with brown, mysterious beard
and strangely pleading. haunting eyes,
He, too, found the society of Helen a
desirable thing. With the eyes of
Romeo and Othello's tongue, he
charmed her with tales of distant
climes and wooed her by respectful
tnnuendo.
From the first Helen felt mar
velous and compelling thrill in the
presence of this man. His voice
somehow took her swiftly back to the
days of her youths romance. This
feeling grew, and she gave way to it,
and 1t led her to an instructive belief
that he had been factor In that rO-
nance And then with a woman's
reasoning (oh, yes, they do, some
tines she leaped over common syllo-
gisms and theory and logic and was
sure that her husband had come back
to her. For she saw in his eyes love,
which no woman can mistake, and q
thousand tons Of regret and remorse,
which aroused pity, which is peril
ously near to love requited, which Is
the sine qua non In the house that
Jack built
But she made no sign. A husband
who steps around the corner for
twenty years and then drops in again
should not expect to find his slippers
laid out too conveniently near nor a
match ready lighted for his cigar.
There must be expiation, explanation
and possibly execration. A little pur-
gatory, and then, maybe, IL he were
properly humble, he might be trusted
with a harp and crown. And so she
made no sign that she knew or sus-
pected.
And my friend the reporter could
see nothing funny in this! Sent out
on an assignment to write up a roar
ing, hilarious. brilliant joshing story
- n. Ii.