Williams news., 1916-01-20
CHAPTER VIII.
A Woman,s Reason.

A Woman's Reason.
 Elsa stared at the vacant doorway. She recognized only a sense of bewil- derment. This was not one of those childish flashes of rudeness that had amused, annoyed and mystifed her. She had hurt him. And how? They had been together three days on the boat, and once he had taken tea with her in Rangoon. She could find noth- ing save that she had been kind to him when, he most needed kindness, and that she had not been stupidly curious, only sympathetically so. He interested her and held that interest because he was type unlike anything she had met outside the covers of book. He was so big and strong, and yet so boy ish. He had given her visions of the character which had carried his man. hood through all these years of strife and bitterness and temptation. And because of this she had shown him that she had taken it for granted that whatever he had done in the past had not put him beyond the pale of her friendship. There had been no de- grading entanglements, and women forgive or condone all other trans- gfessions.
 And what had she just said or done to put that look of dumb agony in his face? She swung impatiently from the rail and began to promenade the deck, still cluttered with luggage over which the Lascar stewards were moil- ing. Many glance followed the SUD- pie pleasing figure of the girl as she passed round and round the deck. Other promenaders stepped aside or permitted her to pass between. The resolute uplift of the chin. and the visions, impressed them with the fact that it would be wiser to step aside voluntarily. There were some, how ever, who considered that they had as much right to the deck as she. Before them she would stop shortly, and as a current breaks and passes each side of an immovable object, they. too, gave way.
 The colonel fused and fumed, and pale lips into thinner paler lips. 1H6SG AH0IlC4uS are lIupOSSlDl0.
 And it is scandalous the. way the young women travel alone. One can never tell what they are"
 "Humph! Brag and assertiveness. And there's that ruffian who came down the river. Whats he doing ,on the same boat? What?"
 Elsa became aware of their presence at the fifth turn. She nodded absently. Being immersed in the sea of conjec- the colonel's glare did not rouse in her the sense of impending disaster
 The first gong for dinner boomed. The echoing vail spoke in the voice of the East, of its dalliance, its con- tent to drift in sargasso sea of en- tangling habits and desires, of its fa- talism and inertia. It did not hearten one or excite hunger. Elsa would rather have lain down in her Canton lounging- chair. The dining-saloon held two long tables, only one O. which was in commission, the starboard. The l saloon was unattractive. punka stretched from one end of the table to the other, and swung indolently to and | fro, whining mysteriously, sometimes subsiding altogether and then Tapping hysterically and setting the women's hair awry.
 Elsa and Martha were seated some where between the head and the foot of the table. The personally-conduct- ed surrounded them, and gabbed in- cessantly during the meal of what they had seen, of what they were going to see, and of what they had missed by not going with the other agencys party. Elsa's sympathy went out to l the tired and faded conductor. e