The Greenville journal. [volume] (Greenville, Ohio) 1850-1918, 1917-03-29
CHAPTER |.
Love of Woman.

If meetings only lived up to their
anticipations, life would be a success
sion of startling ClimaNcS. 1t had been
some months since Meade had seen
Helen lllingworth. He had dreamed
of meeting her every day and had pic
turcd the meeting differently and more
rapturOuSIy after every letter As a
matter Of fact the whole thing was
casual ana ordinary to the last degree.
II always is.
Doctor Severencc, II retired physi-
riau, who was vice president and
financial man, and CurtisS, the chief
engineer of the bridge company, were
hard upon Miss Illngworth'S heels as
she stepped down from the car to the
station platform. He saw her, as it
were, surrounded by proSaiC men. The
woman he loved got the same welcome
and the same handShakc as her father
aud the Other two men. 1t was not
until big 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 anX-
iouS Meade had u moment with the girl
herself.
Now Helen IlIingwOrth had also been
seeing visions, so that she had been as
disappointed as he. The only real sat
i~faCti0n that either of them could take
in the situation lay in the fact that the
other was there. 1t was midsummer
and the girl was dressed in some light
iiImy fabric which we'll became her ra-
diAnt beauty. Meade could look at n
hit of structural steel work and tell
YOU all about it. All that he could
have told you about the dress she wore
was that it was eXQuisitcly appropri-
ate but it never occurred to him that
with great price to great artist
Helen Illingworth had obtained that
look of delightful simplicity.
The gown was not wasted on Meade
she decided, as she caught his raptur-
Gus glance. She had never looked love
lipr. She was not Il fragile. ethereal
woman; quite the reverse. That WAS
one of ten thousand things Meade liked
about her. She could do all those ath-
I"tic and pr ractical things that modern
young women can do and she could do
them well.
Meade was intensely practical and
efficient. He could do all of those
things himself and many more and he
liked to do them, and that is one rea
son why he had been attracted tn her;
vet not for that alone did he love her.
On thai soft summer afternoon she
looked as Subtly delicate MS every man
would mt one time or another have the
woman h" loves appear, and rs far re-
moved from things strenuous as if in
another world! He was wearing The
rough clothes. flannel shirt. khaki trou-
SCrS. heavy shoes and lrggingS which
were his habitual use ut work. Con
trHStCd with her tllmy and deliCately
cnlorrd fabric his wclI-Worn olive
drah hahlimcntS stood forth hidcouSly
That is. he thought 50. and the con
raSt somehow seemed typical of the
difference between them rs he conSd-
cred her.
There was the careless inS0urance
ol conscious power in the bearing of
the engineer which differentiated him
from most of the men With whom she
had been thrown in contact during her
lie. The International Bridge was the
biggest thing of the kind the Martlet
company or any other American Struc-
turnI plant had ever undertaken. 1t
had been constant topic Of COnverS a.
g., l,.,r. -,
had heard all about it, and although,
strictly speaking, the bridge was the
work Of Meade, ST.. yet she always
identified it with Meade, ,lr. There w as
feeling in her mind that il was her
bridge and that, through him, she com
mandcd it. She was Il supremely as
surcd and entirely confident young
lady, vet with the man by her side she
experienced Il passing sense of uneasi-
ness, such as one might conceive the
butterfly would feel in the presence of
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 Il decade and the
other had not Queened it among the
incest girls Of the land for half as
many years. And with thoughts burn
ing. passionate, and words embarrass
ingly torrential at hand 10 give then
utterance, they only spoke common
places
How is the bridge getting along?'
asked the girl, repeating her father.
words of few minutes before, as
these two fell behind the others march
Ing down the long platform. while tn,
maid standing by the private car will
the porter looked curiOusly after thu
moving group and wondered if tina
gray-green, lOng-legged young man wa