The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1914-06-14

See him out" she said over her
snowy shoulder to the servant. "Opcn
the library windows before you 60
down."
The Intruder, following into the hall,
came into air family perfumed with
some strange, sweet, very subtle odor
which fingered where she had been. As
he descended the stairs he began to re-
member in little flashes amazing de-
tails of her that his mind had been able,
half unconsclously, to grasp. He re-
membered the exquisite smothness and
color of her cheeks and throat. the white
beauty of her shoulders and breast that
he had In some way comprehended
without daring to look at directly. He
remembered the splendor Of her slim,
ring laden fingers. He remembered the
Illusion of youthfulness In her figure as
she left the room, trailing her soft
clngng frostily rosy skirts. undulating
just perceptibly. He began to remem-
Der all her half apprehendable perfec-
ton which actually made her seem to
him. weighed by his inadequate meas
ures OF experience, hardly a woman.
The cold air struck his forehead and
neck, hot and moist from his late con-
fusion. The door was slammed shut be-
hind him. He looked up and about with
the manner of a man suddenly waking
out Of unrealitles. Slowly he set out for
home.
As he went, at once inevitably there
occurred to him comparison between
the place he was leaving and that to
which he was now going; between the
woman he had just seen and the one
he would see presently. Two images
stood suddenly before him in cruel con-
trast: the images OF his employers wife
and Of his own.
The difference in that comparison, as
vast Is in every other between his con-
dition and his employers, affected him
terribly by what he would have termed
its injustice. Both OF them, he reflected,
after all Just men; the one had every
thing that signified contentment and en-
joyment in prosperity, the other had
nothing. Both Of them husbands; the
one possessed wife In whom was en-
bodied that evident perfection of woman
hood by which the other was actually
bewildered. And this shabby man, real.
ling that for some one else intimate
life with such woman was an actually,
was going home to the woman allotted
To him-his own wife. He would find
her at the stove in the kitchen of their
dingy little fiat, in a murk of greasy
smoke, dshevelled, red faced coarse,
nowadays repulslve even to him, ready
to greet him with her old look OF mean,
perpetual hostility. At that moment, his
whole weak nature crying out against
the cruelty Of It all, how he loathed
her, for her part among the instruments
of his punishment!
Punishment! But what had h done
to deserve his punishment?
That was. he thought then, the worst
OF 1t; there was no justice at all in
world where such conditions were pos
sible. BY the only doctrine which he
knew-the illogical doctrine which
teaches the poor how to envy and to
hate illogically-this was the intolerable
thing: That the rich should be able
to take everything, and such as he.
striving pathetically for so little, nothing.
How wildly that vilainous wrong
stood out before his eyes tonight, on
his realizing all the tremendous differ
ence between his employers fortunes
and his own, between their homes. their
wives, everything-even themselves!