Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1914-12-06

Struggling WIN IL, Struggling TO remember.
The thing becoming almost torture to me.
since we are on the subject: She won't adj
NIT it, she probably wouldn't admit it even
if you asked her; but she knows
TERN1YN walked across the room for mo-
~ ment and stood at the open window. The
moon now was almost overhead. Against
the black fir trees the deep blue of the sky
and the brilliancc of the stars seemed eX-
traordinarily vivid. 1t was still, soft
night, absolutely silent save for the buzzing
of huge insect attracted by the lights. AS
he stood there Jermyn was conscious of his
first moment of actual depression. Was he
really, as all these people were so ready to
hint, an idealist, dreamer, led by his love
of beauty to keep his head wilfully appraised,
the victim of his own sensitiveness to such
an extent that he refused even to see flaws
in the things he worshiped? After ALL it was
very ordinary world in which he lived.
Was it incumbent upon him to accept its
standards?
Then moment later he was ashamed of
himself. From his first meeting with Sybil
there had never been single second when
he had doubted her He had been in those
days absolutely without prejudice or prefer
ence. His intuition had started him fairly:
rest! He thought of her simple life, her care
full avoidance of all the excuses and vulgari-
ties into which she was so continually
tempted, her care for her sister, their de-
votion for each other. When he came back
across the room he was himself again. He
was ashamed of that one moment of vacilla-
ton. He knew that this man who was re-
sponsible for it was himself the incarnation
of the other things.
"Aynesworth,' he said, with reference to
that memory which you say is GLIDING you,
should like you to understand something.
You are a man of the world; l am not. 1
have asked Sybil Cluley to be my wife, and
having done that l have placed everything
have to offer of myself and my life and my
honor in her hands. These things are not
affected by circumstances. Do you follow
me?"
mo, I'm hanged if I dor Lakenham re-
piled, striking match and lighting his
second pipe you've asked her to marry
you all right; but if you were to find out
that she was"
He shrank suddenly back in his place.
The words that he had been about to use
carelessly enough seemed choked in his
throat. The fire in Jerrnyn's eyes was like
the fash of a rapier.
Forgive me, Jermyn interrupted quiet
ly. "You had better let me finish. You say
yourself that l am crank. Perhaps in
worldly things l am to some extent. Yet I
would like you to understand this: l have
made up my mind to live my life according
to my own ideas, and not according to the
accepted ideas of the world. For that reason
began my little speech to you. For that
reason it will be better for me to conclude it
before you say anything that might make it
impossible for me to receive you any longer
under my roof. If anything should come
to you so that that cell in your memory was
no longer obscured, l want you to under
stand this: l decline to hear anything that
you may remember concerning Miss Cluley.
| decline to hear anything whatever about
her except from her own lips, and from her
own lips have heard all that l choose to
know. Is that clear?"
Lakenham, whose pipe was now going to
his satisfaction, nodded with subdued air
of compassion. ayes, that's all right, Jer-
myn,' he declared. Lord love you! we're
all made differently, aren't We? The only
trouble is that l seem to be made to fit into
this world; but the Lord knows where you'd
find one to suit your notions!"
Jernyn smiled as he rose to his feet and
threw away the end of his cigarette. "My
dear fellow" he said, "half the people you
pass by in the world are living somewhere in