The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1919-02-22
EVENING STORY
The Clinging Vine.

COmmonplac e words, but the voice,
at once full and clear and gentle as
the touch of butterfly's wing, thrilled
Buell. Sargent, the inadvertent listener
in the parlor opening off the recep-
ton hall Of the Delbert house. The
W oman at the phone softly reascended
the stairs. Buell. sighed.
Must have been taking to her hus-
band. A woman with voice like
that's sure to be married.
All the way from the cattle ranch
in Idaho, middle-aged Penelope With
row, widowed by law of one husband,
and on the eager lookout for an
other and more worthy one, had
wondered why her twin brother, Buell.
was SO silent.
She would have laughed in I'M
belief had any one told her Buelfs
silence arose from the fact that he
also had matrimony in his head-that
he had visions of a tender, gentle sort
of creature who would pet him when
he came in at evening" woman who.
unlike his strong minded, independent
sister, would look to him for guidance
in everything.
i've got just a few in my house"
Mrs. Delbert had told them; Carey
Arden, a young law student, and a
young married couple, the Refers;
Mrs Ibsen, nurse, and Esther and
Gayle Perrin, sisters, who cook their
meals in my Kitchen
That evening when Mrs. Delbert in
troduced Buell. to the Refers he re-
joiced secretly. Mrs. Refers voice
was not the voice he had heard at the
phone. And that night he dreamed
some one was calling him Buell., dear
heart in a voice that was velvet and
gold, and the call of the mourning
dove.
Next morning when he stepped on
the piazza with the milk Penelope had
| sent him for, he heard the voice of his
admiration again. The door opened
| and young woman of twenty-three,
tall and fair and beautiful, stepped
out.
Buell. almost dropped his bottles
She must be the Miss Perrin who was
! a stenographer uptown. A girl like
that, with that voice! His breakfast
| tasted like enchanted food.
| When he went down in the hall that
evening he met her going out with a
young Adonis. Buell. looked in the
| hall mirror. The. broad-shou1dered
man with the tanned skin and keen
| blue eyes he saw there looked I'M
| happy.
Presently he turned to see on the
stairs a little woman with a serious,
delicately nodded face, regarding him
with wistful brown eyes. In feature
she was not unlike the Hebe who had
| just gone out, but she was older by ten
| years.
| She flushed little when he turned
and asked him if he had seen
Mrs. Delbert. Buell. felt a tingling in
| his veins. She spoke in the voice that
| for twenty-four hours had held him.
| He forgot the young blonde. and made
| futile efforts to prolong the converse
| ton.
| Esther Perrin is very good,'' Mrs.
| Delbert remarked at the next morn
ing's meal; too good, 1 think some
+ times. She enbroiders and keeps her
self and Gayle, her sister. She mar
kets and cooks and does their laundry
and never asks Gayle to spend a
penny. But Gayle is to be married in
| June and has to buy her trousseau,
and Esthes is bashful and hasn't adj
mirers or marrying notions
No admirers! Here was one,
thought Buell.. After that. when at
dusk Esther slipped out of the kitch-
en- to watch from the hall window
| seat for her sister, to her embarrass-
ment she generally found the big
Idaho man ensconced in the hall.
| Gradually, however, She came to
/ love to see him there, and to listen to
his talk about the ranch. the horse
| back gallops, the auto trips and out
door fun. I'D love it," she thought
to herself. But he-he things I'm the
| old-fashioned clinging woman he likes,
and I'm not that. Maybe 1 can pre-
| tend to be He-he is $3.50 dear
it surely isn't wrong to pretend a
| littlei'
shes afraid" BeelI said to him.
| self when evening after evening Is
Their refused to go out with him and
his sister. pleading she had work.
shes afraid of Penelope. the timid
little thing. Well, Penelope shan't
scare me off from marrying her if
| she'll have be, and I'll protect her and
| think for her the rest of her life, the
little clinging vine of woman!"
One evening when the young law
student. Mrs. Delbert and Buell. came
in the hall after a play they'd attended
| together, they found Esther sitting
there. The young lawyer spoke of the
coming suffrage election. Buell. didn't
| and argued vehemently. Mrs. Delbert
sided with Buell.. Esther listened for
a long time in silence. Then with
kindling eyes and glowing cheeks she
spoke. Her words came in rush;
| swept BuelFs argumnts aside like
| straws. Only the sense that he was
regarding her in angry disapprovai
checked her.
In the darkness of her room she
flung herself down. "Oh, Buell.
BUELL. she breathed. Il can't act
L couldn't keep silence. L thought
some time you'd tell me you loved me,
but you won't now-you won't nowi"
Buell. spent a sleepless night He
couldn't understand how women like
that could say, when he'd insisted that
a woman was represented by her hus-
band: II would not vote my hus-
band if 1 did not think as he did,"
He wanted his wife to think his
| thoughts. Would she love him if she
didn't?
The spring dragged to mid-April.
Buell. fingered no more in the hall at
evening and was so cross that Penelope
told him she would be glad when May
first came and they returned to Idaho.
Omit last evening of the stay of the
brother and sister, Penelope and Mrs.
Delbert. tired of waiting COR Buell..
| who had gone uptown, set out for the
theater together. asking Esther to tell
him when he came in they'd left his
ticket the hall table.
! At 10 O'Clock, when he had not
come. Esther grew uneasy. A few
blocks away on a dark street were