The Dermott news., 1917-06-07
CHAPTER l.
THE EDITOR.
Love of W oman.

If meetings only lived up to their anticipations, life would be a success sion of startling ClimuNes. It had been some months since Ncade had seen Helen lllingworth. He had dreamed of meeting her every duy and had pie tured the meeting differently and more rapturouS,y after every letter As matter of fact the whole thing was casual and ordinary to the last degree. IL always is.
 Doctor SeverenCe n retired physi- cian. who was vice president and financial man. and GurtisS, the chief engineer of the bridge company, were hard upon Miss lliugworth'S heels as she stepped down from the car to the station platform. He saw her. as II were. surrounded by Prosaic men. The woman he loved got the same welcome and the same handshakc as her fathcr and the other two men. It WIS not until hig Abbott. who had been belated by some sudden demand of work. came sweeping down the platform to engage the attention of the men that the unx- ions Meade had moment with the girl herself
 Now Helen Illingwor,h had also been seeing visions, so that she had been as disappointed as he. The only real sat isfaction that either of them could take in the sitaaton iay in the fact that the other was there It was midsummer and the girl was dressed in some light, fkny fabric which well became her ra- tiaNt beauty. Meade could look at a bit Jof structural steel work and tell you all about it. All thnt he could have told you about the dress she wore was that it was exquisltely appropri- ate. but it never occurred to him that with great price to n great artist Helen lllingworth had obtained that look Of delightful simplicity.
 The gown was not wasted on Meade. she decided. as she caught his raptur- ous glance. She had never looked love Her. She was not Il fragile. ethereal woman; quite the reverse. That was one of ten thousand things Meade liked about her She could do nil those ath- ietic and practical things that modern AyouuE women can do and she could do th.k, well.
 eade was intensely practical and eft tent. He could do all of those thijgs himself and many more and he iik{i .to do them. and that Is ono req sod why he had been attr acted to her; yet hot for that alone did he love her. On that soft summer afternoon she looked as subtly delicate us every man would at one time or another have the woman he loves appear, and us far re- moved from things strenuous as If in another world! He was wearing the rough clothes flannel shirt. khaki trou- sers. heavy shoes and leggings which were his habitunl use at work. Con trasted with her filmy and dclicately colored fabric his well-worn olive drab habilments stood forth hideously. That Is, he thought so, and the con trast somehow seemed typical of the difference between them us he consid- cred her.
 There was the careless insouciance of conscious power in the be airing of the engineer which differentiated him from most of the men with whom she had been thrown In contact during her life. The International Bridge was the biggest thing of the kind the Martlet company or any other American struc- tural plant had ever undertaken. IL had been constant topic of convers a- ton wherever her father was. She had heard nll about 1t. and although. strictly speaking. the bridge wns the work of Meade. Sr.. Yet she always identified it with Meade. Jr There N as a feeling in her mind that It was her bridge and that. through him. she com manded IL. She was supremely as sured and entirely confident young lady. yet with the man by her side she experienced passing sense of uneasi ness. such as one might conceive the butterfly would feel in the presence of .a steam hammer.
 They were as awkward and con strained when left to themselves as if one had not been all over the world on mans Jobs for decade and the other had not queened 1t among the