Macon beacon. [volume] (Macon, Miss.) 1859-1995, 1916-09-29

to label Amy sweetest and most
seraphic of diminutives."
IF you don't like my name" she
began, and then she went OF at an.
other tangent. Please tell me why
am a collection of contradictions"
Brouillard's gaze went past the
shapely little figure in the string ham.
mock to lose itself in the far Timan.
yoni distances.
You are a bundle of surprises" he
said. letting the musing thought slip
into speech. What can you possibly
know about my thoughts"
She made a funny little grimace at
him. 1T was contradictions a mo-
ment ago and now it is surprises
Which reminds me. you haven't told
me why l am a collection"
"Oh, | can catalogue them II you
push me to it, One minute you are
the Madonna lady that | can't recall.
calm, reposeful. truthful. and all that,
you know-so truthful that those child
like eyes Of yours would make a slut
tering imbecile Of the mar who should
come to you with a lie in his mouth"
And the next minute?"
The next minute you are a witch,
laughing at the mans little weak
nesses, putting your finger on them as
accurately as II you could read his
soul. holding them up to your ridicule
and-what's much worse-to his own.
At such times your insight, or what
ever you choose to call 1t, is enough
to give a man a fit of seeing things"
Her laugh was like a schoolgirls.
l~ight-hearted, ringing. deliciously unre-
strained.
What a pictured" she commented.
And then: Il can draw a better one
of you. Monsieur Victor de Brouil.
lard"
DO it." he dared.
Very we'll, then: Once upon a time
it was a good while ago, I'm afraid
you were a very upright young man.
You would cheerfully have died for a
principle in those days, and you would
have allowed the enemy to cut you up
into cunning little inch cubes before
you would have admitted that any pig
con was ever made to be plucked."
He was smiling mirthlessly, with the
black mustaches taking the sardonic
upcurve.
Then what ~happened?"
One OF two things, or maybe both
of them. You were pushed out into
the life race with some sort of a
handicap. l don't know what it vas
or is. Is that true?"
He nodded gravely. 1T is all true
enough. You haven't added anything
more than a graceful little touch here
and there. Who has been telling you
all these things about me? Not
Grizzy?'
mo, not Murray Grislow; it was the
man you think you know best in all
the worldwide is also probably the
one you know the least-yourself."
Good heavens! Am | really such a
transparent egoist as all that?"
All men are egoists," she answered
"ln some the ego Is sound
and clear-eyed and strong; in others
1t Is weak-in the same way that pas.
sion is weak; 1t will sacrifice all 1t has
hopes to have In some sudden fury
self-assertion."
She sat up and put her hands to her
hair, and he was free to look away.
Town upon the great ditch where the
chain Of concrete buckets
added to the deep and Widespread
Of the dam. Across the
liver a group Of hidden sawmills sang
heir raucous song. In the middle dis
the camp-town city spread
is roughly indicated streets over the
'alley level. the tall chimney stacks
II the new cement plant were rising.
md from the quarries beyond the
liant the dull thunder of the blasts
up.
This was not Brouillard's first visit
0 the cabin on the Massingale claim
y many. In the earliest stages Of the
alley activities Smith, the Buckskin I
attleman, had been Amy Massingale's s
scort to the reclamation camp-"just
couple O. lockers" in Smiths phrase /
and the unconventional attitudes
ad done the rest. From that day for s
'ard the young woman had Hospitality {
pened her door to Brouillard and his /
ssistants, and any member of the
orps, from Lexington the morose. I
rho commonly came to sit in solemn Q
Hence on the porch step, to Griffith. d
Tho had lost his youthful heart to
liss Massingale on his first visit, was c
'elcome. q
IA CHAPTER VII N =,