The Madisonian. (Richmond, Ky.) 1913-1914, 1914-07-07
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ILLUSTRATED 81 LAUREN STOUT
LAUREN STOUT

Would Valiant forget after time?
Would he marry-Miss Fargo, per-
haps? The thought caused her a stab
of anguish. Yet she herself could not
marry him. The barrier was impas-
sableI
She was still lying listlessly among
the cushions when a step sounded on
! the porch and she heard Chilly Lusk's
voice in the hall. With heavy hands
Shirley put into place her disheveled
hair and rose to meet him.
Pm awfully selfish to come to-
night he said awkwardly; mo doubt
you are tired out"
She disclaimed the WEAKNESS that
dragged upon her spirits like leaden
weights, and made him welcome with
her usual cordially. She was, in fact,
relieved at his coming. At Damory
court, the night of the ball, when she
had come from the garden with her
lips thrilling from Valiant's kiss, she
had suddenly met his look. It had
seemed to hold a startled realization
that she had remembered with re-
morseful conjunction. Since that
night he had not been at Rosewood.
Ranston had lighted a pine-knot in
the fireplace, and the walls were shud-
! dering with crimson shadows. Her
hand was shielding her eyes, and as
she strove to fill the gaps in their
! somewhat spasmodic conversation
with the trivial impersonal things that
/ belonged to their old intimacy, the
| tiny Pickering flames seemed to be
i darting unfriendly fingers plucking at
her secret. Leaning from her nest of
! cushions she thrust the poker into
/ the glowing resinous mass till sparks
whizzed up the chimney's black nav
/ in a torrent.
'How they fiy!" she said. hickey
/ Snyder calls it raising a blizzard in
Hades. I used to think they flew up
to the sky and became the 1ittlest
stars. What a pity we have to grow
up and learn SO much! I'd rather
have kept on believing that when the
i red leaves in the woods whirled about
II. a circle the fairies were dancing,
and that it was the gnomes who put
the cockle-burs in the hounds ears.
She had been talking at random,
gradually becoming shrinkingly con-
scious of his constrained and stun
bling manner. She had, however, but
half defined his errand when he came
to it all in burst.
Il can't get to it, somehow, Shir-
ley he said with sudden desperation,
"but here it is. I've come to ask you
to marry me. Don't stop me-" he
went on hurriedly, lifting his hand:
whatever you say, must tell you
I've been trying to for months and
monthsi'' Now that he had started
it came with a boyish vehemence that
both chilled and thrilled her. Even
in her own desolation, and shrinking
almost unbearably from the avowal
the hope and brightness in his voice
touched her with pity. 1t seemed to
her that life was a strange tumble OF
unacceptable and incomprehensible
pain. And all the while, in the young
voice vibrant with feeling, her cring
ing ear was catching imagined echoes
of that other voice, graver and more
self-contained, but shaken by the same
passion, in that iteration of Il love
you! l love you'll"
His answer came to him finally in
her silence, and he released her hands
which he had caught in his own. They
dropped, limp and unresponsive, in
her lap. Shirley" he said brokenly.
maybe you can't care for me-yet.
But if you will marry me, I'm be
content wit 80 little, till-you do"
She shook her head, her hair max
ing dim flashes in the freight. mo,
Chilly" she said. at makes me
wretched to give you pain, but l must
i must! Love isn't like that. 1t
doesn't come afterward. 1 know.
could never give you what you want.
You would end by despising me, as
should despise myself"
81 won't give up" he said incoher-
emily. q can't give up. Not so long
as know there's nobody else. At the
ball / thought thought perhaps you
cared for Valiant-but since he told
me"
He stopped suddenly, for she was
J looking at him from an ashen face
He told me there was no reason why
should not try my luck" he said diff
ficultly. Il asked him"
There was a silence, while he gazed
at her, breathing despair. Then he
tried to laugh
"All right" he said hoarsely. 1T
it doesn't matter Don't worry"
She stretched out her hand to him
in a gesture of wistful pain, and he
held it moment between both OIL
his, then released it and went hur
riedly out
AS the door closed, Shirley sa
down, her head dropping into hel
hands like torm-broken flower. Val
liant had accepted the finality of the
situation. With wave of deeper
J hopelessness than had yet submerged
her, she realized that, against her owl
decision, something deep within he
had taken shy and secret comfort il
his stubborn masculine refusal
Against all fact, in face of the impos
sible, her heart had been clinging tt
this-as though his love might ever
attain the miraculous and somewhere
somehow, recreate circumstance. Blu
now he, too, had bowed to the decree
A kind of utter apathetic wretched
ness seized upon her, to replace tn
sharp misery that had so long beel
her companion--an empty numbnes
in which, in measure, she ceased tt
feel.
An bour dra peed slowly by and q