The states-graphic. (Brownsville, Tenn.) 1???-1984, 1917-01-26
CHAPTER !.
Love of Woman.
CIVIL En0lHEER.


sion of startling climaxes. Ii had been
some months since Meade had seen
Helen lllingworth. He had dreamed
OF meeting her every day and had pic
tured the meeting differently and more
rapturously after every letter. As a
matter of fact the whole thing was
casual and ordinary to the last degree.
1t always is.
Doctor Severance, retired physi-
clan, who was vice president and
financial man; and Curtiss. the chief
engineer of the bridge company, were
hard upon Miss Illingworth'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 handshake as her father
and 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 Ihen that the anx-
ious Meade had moment with the girl
herself.
Now Helen Illingworth 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 situation lay in the fact that the
other was there It was midsummer
and the girl was dressed in some light,
1ilmy fabric which wen became her ra-
diant beauty. Meade could look at a
bit 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 eXquisitely appropri-
ate, but it never occurred to him that
with a 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
lier. She was not a fragile, ethereal
woman; quite the reverse. That was
one of ten thousand things Meade liked
about her. She could do all those ath-
letic and pr actical 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 attr acted to her;
yet not for that alone did he love her.
On that soft summer afternoon she
looked as subtly delicate as every man
would at one time or another have the
woman he loves appear, and as 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 habitual use at work. Con-
trasted with her fllmy and delicately
colored fabric his well-worn olive
drab habillments stood forth hide0usly.
That is, he thought so, and the con-
trast somehow seemed typical of the
difference between them as 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. 1t
had been a constant topic of convers a
ton wherever her father was. She
had heard all about it, and although,
strictly speaking, the bridge was the
work of Meade, ST., yet she always
identified it with Meade, Jr. There W as
a feeling in her mind that it was her
bridge and that, through him, she COM
manded it. She was supremely as
sured and entirely confident young
lady, yet with the man by her side she
experienced a passing sense of uneasl-
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 it among the
incest girls of the land for half as
IN any years. And with thoughts burn
ing, passionate, and words embarrass-
ingly torrentlal at hand to give them
utterance, they only spoke common
placesi
''How is the bridge getting along"
asked the girl, repeating her fathers
words Of a few minutes before, as
these two fell behind the others march
ing down the long platform, while the
maid standing by the private car with
the porter looked curiously after the
moving group and wondered If that
gray-green, long-legged young man was
the reason for the New York gown
'Tts doing splendidly," was the an
swer, and even with his heart full of
the girl by his side whom he longed
to clasp in his arms but did not even
d are touch the hem of her garment,
some little enthusiasm came into his
voice. "It is the greatest bridge that
was ever erected, he said.
"HOw you love It," said the girl.
Did Meade love the bridge? All,