The Lakeland evening telegram. (Lakeland, Fla.) 1911-1922, 1913-09-30

SouSlI, TeSCiulICu, Uel ermlndLlOn
This man had deliberately withdrawn
from the world, buried himself in this
mountain, and had stayed there deaf
to the alluring call of man or woman;
he had had the courage to do that.
Was it strength of mind she ad-
mired? Enid Maitland was no mean
judge of the mental powers of her
acquaintance She was just as full of
life and spirit and the joy of them as
any young woman should be, but she
had not been trained by and thrown
with the best for nothing. Noblesse
oblige! That his was mind we'll
stored with knowledge of the most,
varied sort she easily and at once
perceived. Of course the popular
books of the last five years had passed
him by, and of such he knew nothing,
but he could talk intelligently, inter-
estingly, entertainingly upon the great
Classics. Keats and Shakespeare were
his most thumbed volumes. He had
| graduated from Harvard as a civil
engineer with the highest honors Of
his class and school and the youngest
man to get his sheepskin. Enid Matt
land herself was a woman of broad
culture and wide reading and she de-
liberately set herself to fathom this
mans capabilities. Not infrequently,
much to her surprise, sometimes to
her dismay, but generally to her sat
isfaction, she found that she had no
plummet with which to sound his
greater depths.
Did she seek in him that fine flow.
er of good breeding, gentleness and
consideration? Where could she find
these qualities better displayed? She
was absolutely alone with this man,
entirely in his power, shut off from
the world and its interference as eff
fectually as If they had both been
abandoned in an ice foe at the North
Pole or cast away on some lonely is.
land in the South Seas, yet she felt
as safe as II she had been in her own
house, or her uncle's, with every pro-
lection that human power could give.
He had never presumed upon the sit.
uation in the least degree, he never
once referred to the circumstances
Of their meeting in the remotest wHy,
he never even discussed her rescue
from the food, he never told her how
he had borne her through the rain to
the lonely shelter of the hills, and in
no way did he say anything that the
most keenly scru;inizing mind would
torture into an allusion to the pool
and the bear and the woman. The
tineness Of his breeding was never so
J we'll exhibited as in this reticence.
4 More often than not 1t is what liz
does not rather than what he does
that indicates the man.
II would be folly to deny that he
never thought of these things Had
he forgotten them there would be no
merit in his silence; but to remem.
Der them and to keep still-aye, that
showed the man! He would close his
eyes in that little room on the other
side of the door and see again the
dark pool, her white shoulders, her
graceful arms, the lovely face with
its crown of sunny hair rising above
the rushing water. He had listened
/ to the roar of the wind through the
long nights, when she thought him
asleep if she thought of him at all,
and heard again the scream of the
storm that had brought her to his
arms. No snow drop that touched
his cheek when he was abroad but
reminded him of that night in the
cold rain when he had held her close
and carried her on. He could not sit
and mend her boot without remem-
bering that white foot before which
he would faill have Frustrated him.
self and upon which he would have
pressed passionate kisses if he had
given way to his desires. But he kept
all these things in his heart, pom
dered them and made no sign.
Did she ask beauty in her lover?
All, there at last he failed. Accord
ing to the canons of perfection he
did not measure up to the standard.
His features were irregular, his chin
trille too square, his mouth 6.
thought too firm, his brow wrinkled a
little; but he was good to look at for
he looked strong, he looked clean and
he looked true. There was about
him, too, that stamp of practical ef-
fciency that men who can do things
always have. You looked at him and
you felt sure that what he undertook
that he would accomplish, that de-
cision and capability were incarnate
in him.
But after all the things are said
love goes where it is sent, and
/, at least, am not the sender.
This woman loved this man Meth
er because nor in spite of these
qualities. That they were might
account for her affection, but If they
had not been, it may be that that af.
lection. that that passion, would have
inhabitated her heart still. No one
can say, no one can tell how or why