The Pulaskian., 1917-07-27
CHAPTER xIx-continued.

Cf1Af Gn NiN--GOTAiHuGOs
 --15-
 "You are not child any longer, Sid- ney. You have learned a great deal in this last year. One of the things YOU know is that almost every man has small affairs, many of them some times, before he finds the woman he wants to marry. When he finds her, the others are all off-there's nothing to them. It's the real thing then, in- stead of the sham"
 Palmer was very much in love with Christine and yet"
 Palmer is a cad"
 q don't want you to think I'm mak- ing terms. Pm not. But if this thing went on, and I found out afterward that you-that there was anyone else, it would kill me-
 "Then you care, after all p
 There was something boyish in his triumph, in the very gesture with which he held out his arms, like child who has escaped whipping. He stood up and, catching her hands, drew her to her feet. You love me, dear"
 l Ill dIIdIu 1 uO, MdA.
 "Then Pm yours, and only yours, if you want me-" he said, and took her in his arms.
 He was riotously happy, must hold her off for the joy of drawing her to him again, must pull off her gloves and kiss her soft bare palms.
 T love you, love you! p he cried, and bent down to bury his face in the warm hollow of her neck.
 Sidney glowed under his caress-was rather startled at his passion, little ashamed.
 "Ten me you love me a little bit. Say it."
 1T love you." said Sidney, and flushed scarlet
 But even in his arms, with the warm sunlight on his radiant face, with his lips to her ear, whispering the divine absurdities of passion, in the back of her obstinate little head was the thought that while she had given him her first embrace, he had held other women in his arms. It made her pas siye, prevented her complete surren- der
 She broke the news of her engage ment to k. herself, the evening of the same day. The little house was quiet when she got out of the car at the door. Harriet was asleep on the couch at the foot of her bed, and Christine's rooms were empty. She went upstairs to the room that had been her moth- CTS, and took off her hat. She wanted to be alone, to realize what had hap pened to her. A year ago her half promise to Joe had gratified her sense of romance. She was loved, and she had thrilled to it.
 But this was different. Marriage, that had been but vision then, 1oomed large, almost menacing. She had learned the law of compensation that for every joy one pays in suffering. Women who married went down into the valley of death for their children. One must love and be loved very ten derly to pay for that. The scale must balance.
 Harriet was stirring, across the hall. Sidney could hear her moving about with flat, inelastic steps.
 That was the alternative. One mar ned, happily or not as the case might De, and took the risk. Or one stayed single, like Harriet, growing little hard, exchanging slimness for lean ness and austerity of figure, fiat-chest- ed, thin-voiced. All at once it seemed very terrible to her. She felt as if she had been caught in an inexorable hand that had closed about her.
 Harriet found her little later, face down on her mothers bed crying as if her heart would break. She scolded her roundly.
 You've been overworking," she said. You've been getting thinner. Your measurements for that suit showed it. have never approved of this hospital training. and after last January"
 She could hardly credit her senses when Sidney, still swollen with weep ing, told her of her engagement.
 But I don't understand. If you care Tor him and he has asked you to marry hlm, why on earth are you crying your eyes out?"
 T do care. don't know why I cried. II just came over me, all at once, that i- It was just foolishness. am very happy, Aunt Harriet"
 Harriet thought she understood. The giri needed her mother, and she. Har- nef, was hard, midGle-aged woman and poor substitute. She patted Sid ney's moist hand.
 T guess understand, she said. 'I'Il